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ANDERSON, PUBLISHERS, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN 



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BATTLE-FIELDS 

REVISITED, 



Grant's Chattanooga Campaign, 



A Horseback Ride from Chatta- 
nooga to Atlanta, 



BY COMRADE C, 0, BROWN 




KALAMAZOO, MICH.: 
EATON <& ANDERSON. 

.1888, 



Fxis 

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Copyright 1886. Eaton & Anderson. 



eppefkee. 



The following pages were originally addressed to 
the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph in the form of 
newspaper correspondence. "Written hastily on 
the journey — sometimes beneath an inviting tree, 
or in a fence corner by the roadside, sometimes in 
the deserted forts or trenches themselves — publi- 
cation in book form was the last thing that the 
writer dreamed of. He was on a vacation trip, 
tramping and 

" Tenting on the old camp ground." 
The thought occured to him that things which 
were found to be of such intense interest to him- 
self might also interest his comrades if they were 
jotted down. With that view the first series of 
letters was written. On his way north he stopped 
off in time to attend the great re-union of Ohio 
soldiers held at Columbus, August 12, 1880. Pres- 
ident Hayes, General Sherman and other prominent 
generals were present, besides a throng of many 
thousand veterans, of the rank and file. Some 
one having learned of the author's trip, he was 
called out and gave a very brief account, which 
was so heartily received that he was led to think 
that his letters to the Telegraph, if gathered into 
pamphlet form, might prove acceptable to many 



— 4 — 

who desired a fuller account. An edition was 
published, which without any especial attempt 
at advertising, sold readily, and is exhausted. 
The demand however continues. It has, there- 
fore, been determined to issue a new edition, 
adding a second series of letters, written during a 
more recent visit, in which the writer was accom- 
panied by his wife. The letters will be but slight- 
ly modified. The writer believes that the words 
as they were written on the spot, with the scenes 
before him ; will be more vivid, and therefore more 
acceptable to his comrades, than if he had dressed 
them over and put them into a starched collar and 
cuffs. The boys at the front had a poor opinion 
of soldiers who wore "biled shirts" during the war. 
Too fine a uniform was a sure sign of a shirk. 
The men in dusty shoes, and rusty blouses, were 
the men who saved the Union. Those were 
rugged times. The words which would recall 
them, even briefly, must not be too smooth. 

Chas.-O. Browk. 
Kalamazoo, Sept. 10, 1885. 



<So 6^attar200<^ 



A MIDSUMMER EXPEDITION — MAMMOTH COMMERCIAL 
UNDERTAKING — RAILROADING IN AIR— A FLIGHT 
AMONG THE MOUNTAINEERS. 

Leaving Kalamazoo yesterday afternoon at 3 
o'clock (July 23d, 1880,) via the G. R. & T. rail- 
road, I arrived, without any peculiarly interesting 
event, at Cincinnati by the 7:40 a. m. train. The 
morning was clear and beautiful as the long 
shadows of the trees, cast by the rising sun, fell 
across the beautiful river through whose valley we 
approached the city. Before we reached Hamilton, 
20 miles north of Cincinnati, the smoke which 
pre-tokened our proximity to Cincinnati was 
apparent, and before we reached that city the 
cloud had grown so thick and black as almost to 
obscure the sun. 

I determined to go South by the new and 
wonderful Cincinnati Southern railroad to 
Chattanooga, leaving the Ohio river trip to the 
return, when I can enjoy it bv daylight. Here, 
I am at Chattanooga again, within cannon-shot of 
four famous battle-fields — Chickamauga, Mission- 
ary Ridge, Chattanooga, and Lookout Mountain — 
which latter I can see plainly, apparently only a 
few rods from my hotel window — really three miles 
away. In this clear mountain air since sun-down 
the mercury cannot be higher than 65°, for it is 
quite chilly. At n'o time yesterday through 



~ 6 — # 

southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, did it 
reach higher than 74.°. 

Many of you doubtless know the history of the 
railroad over which I have this afternoon come to 
this place. It was built (and is owned) by the 
city of Cincinnati, at an expense of $22,000,000, 
through 335 miles of the extremely mountainous 
and rugged region of east Kentucky and Tennes- 
see, for the purpose of attracting southern trade. 
Taken all in all, it is one of the most masterly 
pieces of modern engineering. For more than 200 
miles of its course there is scarcely a foot but has 
required the severest of grading through solid 
rock. Nature has economized the drift covering 
of all this region, for a foot or two of shoveling 
lays bare the bed-rock of lime-stone through 
which the numerous deep cuts have had to be 
blasted. There are 27 tunnels on the line, 25 of 
them within 100 miles ! and there are deep chasms 
innumerable, which have been spanned by mag- 
nificent iron trestles, not unfrequently 170 to 200 
feet in height, over which the train rolls as if it 
were dancing in air. Indeed such is the impression, 
unless the traveler thrusts out his head to see 
whether there be anything under him, for there 
are no railings. In one or two instances the train 
bursts from a tunnel full upon these airy struc- 
tures. Such is the case at the Cumberland river, 
where the traveler looks back upon a face of per- 
pendicular rock, from which he has just emerged, 
and out into a chasm 160 feet below him, and on 



. — 7 — 

either side are mountains of striking beauty. The 
Kentucky river is spanned by the highest bridge 
of the course (286 feet high), which indeed is the 
highest bridge in the world ! It had been intended 
to build at this point a suspension bridge and the 
lofty pillars still stand unused. As to the road- 
bed it is ballasted throughout its entire length 
with broken stone and is one of the finest in 
the country, although but six months in use. 
This may be inferred from the fact that the 335 
miles was made in a little over 10 hours. In 
the vicinity of Lexington Henry Clay's monu- 
ment is plainly seen from the cars. The 
country is beautiful in its fine farms and 
wealthy residences, each partly surrounded with 
its circle of negro huts, as in the former years. 
But for the most part the road has penetrated "a 
waste, howling wilderness," uninhabited, save by 
the "poor white trash," and almost wholly unim- 
proved. What soldier does not remember the 
numerous and indescribably miserable huts of the 
poor whites? 

For more than 150 miles the road creeps along 
the sides or the very ridges of mountain chains, 
over which there are no roads, only bridle paths, 
which connect the log houses of the mountaineers 
which are everywhere in this region. The railroad 
has only laid this strange people entirely open to 
the inspection of civilization, for here they had 
lived for generations. t Although I had previously 
travelled thousands of miles in the South, never had 



— g _ 

I seen a better opportunity to study the poor whites. 
The other regular routes of travel seem only to 
intersect their mountain ranges, while here you 
have them in view for nearly 2i£H) miles. What is 
that, awajr down yonder in the valley, 150 feet 
beneath the bridge; or, as by chance, clinging to 
the mountain side, amid the oak trees that have 
not been cleared from the door ? Why it is a log 
hut, perhaps 12 by 14, scarcely ever larger, and 
not to exceed six feet high at the eaves. It is 
rudely covered with shakes, some of which have 
perhaps blown off, leaving openings ; its logs dis- 
cover large open spaces where the " chinking " has 
fallen out, and although there is nothing which 
could be called a window, so also is there no need 
of one, for you can see clear through from side to 
side by these openings. There is no dooryard, not 
a sign of growing vegetables; but down yonder, 
perhaps half a mile away, is an acre or two of 
sickly corn, possibly one or two acres of wheat. 
The fields are covered with all of the large timber, 
which still stands in the form of " girdlings. J ' 
These crops must suffice for the living of the 
family. They are for the most part grown 
by the women, while the men spend their 
time loitering at some log hut, which serves 
as a grocery and saloon, which they attend 
daily, going on horseback or roaming oyer 
the mountains with gun and dog. We passed 
large numbers of these " villages " — often 
consisting of only one or two of these huts. No 



matter what the size of the 'Village, 1 ' there was 
always a large squad of saddled horses and mules 
tied about in the bushes; while the long, lean and 
lank owners stand on the "grocery" steps. One 
can scarcely imagine, until he has tried it, how 
strange is the sensation produced by whirling 
through this wild, mountainous reagion for nearly 
200 miles without seeing any higher evidences of 
civilization than I have described, except those 
connected with the fine railroad on which he is 
traveling. In the door of every one of these huts 
(which are far less comfortable than some which 
Stanley describes as having seen in Central Africa), 
stood the mother, holding the nearly naked, but 
none the less inevitable, baby; while in and around 
the hut might be seen half a dozen more children 
of all sizes — also nearly naked. " This country 
raises nothing but tan-bark and babies," said one of 
the railroad employes; while such is the prepond- 
erance of the latter commodity that I had not no- 
ticed the former! It will be seen therefore that 
Cincinnati enterprise seeks to tap the South at its 
very heart, over a barren region where for years the 
local trade can be only nominal, and already the 
plan is a success. Long lines of freights nearly 
choke the road. The passenger rates have been 
reduced to half-fare, $6.75 paying for a first-class 
ride over the entire line, with its truly wonderful 
mountain scenery. 

About four o'clock, while we were in the midst 
of the tunnel region', I accosted the conductor: 



-id— 

u How about a chance to ride a while on the 
engine?" 

" Can't be done!" 

11 But see here a minute, conductor; I've been 
taking notes all the afternoon, and I'm going to 
write you up. You see, I'd like to put in an ac- 
count of a ride on an engine through these 
wonderful gorges." 

"Oh, yes; I see! You just come forward next 
stop." 

So I was duly installed by the side of the en- 
gineer, Mr. E. L. Burk, whom I found very com- 
panionable. 

"It takes a man of nerve to ride on this engine, 
sir," he said to me as I took my seat by his side. 
And so it would seem. Just look back a moment. 
Have you ever been around the famous " Horse 
Shoe curve " on the Pennsylvania Central ? If so, 
just imagine that curve torn loose from its nest- 
ling against the concave base of the mountain and 
set up on iron stilts 175 feet high; then imagine 
the rapid flowing New river beneath, then you 
have it ! In a word, the road emerges from a deep 
cut in the side of the mountain; begins a semi r 
circle at the base of the mountain; then, at a turn, 
cuts loose from the mountain, springs out over 
the frightful valley, and completes the sharp curve 
on a quarter of a mile of iron trestles 175 feet in 
air. On we plunge ! Talk about " curves," and 
"cuts," and "scenery!" Talk about the Lehigh 
Valley road! Imagine that road to have been 



" doubled and twisted M and then hung up to dry 
and wrinkle, and you will perhaps t have a few 
more curves than the Cincinnati Southern ! I rode 
sixty miles with the engineer, and during the 
greater part of that time I could not see more than 
from six to eight rods ahead of the engine, which 
swept around the curves, first to this side and 
then to that, as rapidly as the Pacific express 
goes through Galesburg ! See ! there before us is 
the sharp angle in the rock. Beyond it you see 
off into the valley hundreds of feet below; and yet 
around that centrifugal curve the engine dashes, 
only to turn sharply again and lose itself in the 
utter darkness of a half-mile or so of tunnel ! Dur- 
ing the daytime the head-lamp is not lighted, and 
the engineer plunges through without a ray to 
tell whether any' rock has fallen from the ceiling 
across the track. During my ride on the engine 
we passed through twenty of these tunnels. But 
who can properly paint the beauties of the Emory 
river valley, which the railroad skirts for seventeen 
miles? with its crystal-pure water dashing over 
the rocks; with its lining on either side of high 
mountains which come close down to the water; 
with its frequently steep escarpment of bare rock. 
I here challenge criticism by venturing the asser- 
tion that there is nothing on the Hudson river to 
surpass it, and I firmly believe there is nothing 
there to equal it. 



REVIVING OLD MEMORIES FROM POINT LOOKOUT — 
PRIZE OF THE STRATEGISTS — A STOLEN" MARCH — 
INCIDENT OF GRANT. 

Here we are at familiar old Chattanooga again. 
The city has grown to twice its former size; but 
all of this growth and improvement does not change 
nor even modify the grand natural objects with 
which the boys became familiar when they used to 
look up at the rebel battery yonder on Point Look- 
out and towards their rifle trenches which skirted 
the brow of Missionary Ridge. But let us climb 
old Lookout and stand once more on the peak and 
we can then take in the numerous objects, once so 
familiar, at a single glance. 

Taking the hack at the European House, I found 
myself in company with Dr. J. S. Gillespie and 
daughter. The doctor's experiences in this vicin- 
ity cover the war with all of its devastation. 
" There wasn't a rail left on my farm, which you 
see yonder in the valley," he said, as we climbed 
up the rugged mountain road. The daughter, 
now a delightful young lady, then a child of two 
or three years, has it to boast of that the great 
Yankee general, W. T. Sherman, held her in his 
arms during his visits to her father's plantation. 

But here now we are at the very top, where 

Hooker's men swept up, like a storm bursting from 
12 



— 13 — 

the clouds which had covered them during the as- 
cent. 

Present company and momentary incidents are 
forgotten. The past rises before me like a dream. 
The mountain top is not merely, to me, a spot 
whence may be seen some of the grandest land- 
scape and mountain scenery upon which mortal 
ever looked down — it is more; it is a spot whence 
I see again the sights and hear again the sounds 
which marked a mighty epoch in our national his- 
tory. Yonder are old Forts Negley and Wood, still 
visible and in tolerable condition. The road which 
Hooker's men built to their camp on the mountain 
side is here just below me, still in use and one of 
the best in this region. Behind me are the fort 
and trenches which cross the neck of the moun- 
tain and which shielded Bragg's men from our 
shot and shell thrown from Chattanooga. They 
are still sharply defined and if left to themselves 
they will be so, for years to come; for they 
are overgrown with pines and oaks, some of which 
are nearly a foot in diameter, whose roots pene- 
trate and bind the embankments in all directions. 
How can I believe my eyes ! Who will break the 
force of this strange spell ? Do I dream or is this 
reality ? It seems but yesterday that I stood here. 
Then these works had been but freshly made and 
were bare. Now, behold they are covered with a 
forest! What mighty Aladdin has rubbed his 
lamp that these things can be? Ah, I remember 
now; sure enough^ sixteen years have gone by 



— 14 — 

since that "yesterday." Old forests have been 
cleared and new ones have sprung up since that 
day. Since then cities have been built, wars have 
been waged and empires have passed away. 

There near Orchard Knob in the valley, where 
Grant had his headquarters during the battle 
of Chattanooga, is now the beautiful national 
cemetery where repose the bodies of 12,960 of our 
comrades who fell in the bloody conflicts of this 
region. Further on is the historic and beautiful 
Mission Ridge ; following along to the south-east 
the eye rests upon the fearful field of Chickamauga. 
Here just beneath us, nearly two thousand feet 
down, and winding away in its tortuous course 
through the mountains, is the Tennessee river; 
while just on its brink there goes a train of cars 
which looks no larger than a chain drawn over 
the ground, and so far down that scarcely an echo 
comes up from its rumbling. "What is that little 
thing moving in the road away down there? As 
sure as I live it is a man ! Nor can I tell whether 
he is white or black; whether he is the general 
manager of all the railroads centering here, or the 
fellow who this morning polished his boots! Such 
is human greatness, when compared with that 
grandeur which here, at the command of the Al- 
mighty, raised its head, to bathe in the clouds and 
receive the last glorious rays of the setting sun. 

You will tell me that I have lost my purpose in 
these rhapsodies. I answer that it was almost 
worth the danger of a soldier's life to be permitted 



— 15 — 

to dwell for a season amid this marvelous scenery; 
to let its beauty and glory captivate the soul and 
chain itself amid her memories forever. 

This is a grand place for reminiscences, to one 
who participated in the stirring events of this 
region during the war. The whole field of opera- 
tions of both armies, for miles around, is in clear 
view from Lookout Point. Chattanooga was a 
place of great strategic importance. Both armies 
were ready to contend for it to the limit of their 
strength. Bragg sallied forth from it to fight the 
battle of Chickamauga, expecting to take Rosecrans 
at great disadvantage and annihilate the different 
commands of his army in detail. Our army, driven 
at Chickamauga, took refuge in the very city for 
whose possession both generals were contending. 
But once in it, with the prestige of victory on the 
side of the rebels, our forces were soon so com- 
pletely hemmed in that they were practically in 
a state of siege. Every old soldier who fought in 
this region will instantly recall the situation. 
The city stands at the north end of Chattanooga 
valley, which is formed by the Lookout Mountain 
raneje on the west and Missionary Ridge on the 
east. Just north of the city is the Tennessee river, 
which completely crosses this valley at its north- 
eastern end; and to the north of the river is Wai- 
ting's Ridge, another range of mountains of much 
the same precipitous character as Lookout, lying 
between our army and their depot of supplies at 
Bridgeport. On the east and west and north 



— 16 — 

therefore our forces were pretty thoroughly shut 
in by the lofty barriers of nature. When Bragg 
poured his " men through Rossville gap and 
threw up a line of breastworks reaching entirely 
across the Chattanooga valley, having his left on 
Lookout Mountain and his right on and along the 
crest of Missionary Ridge, our array was com- 
pletely shut in, except a narrow and tortuous 
wagon road over Walling's Ridge. It began to 
look as if our boys, having marched and fought 
through an entire campaign for the possession of 
Chattanooga, were too much like a fly in a barrel 
of molasses — with more sweet than either bar- 
gained for. 

The siege lasted from the 23d of September, 
when Bragg secured his position, to the 27th of 
October when the movement under General W. F. 
Smith, shortly after General Grant assumed com- 
mand, succeeded in capturing and holding the 
crossing at Brown's ferry. Here, just beneath us 
as we stand on Point Lookout, is the entire 
scene of that peculiar movement, more strange 
and fascinating in its details than any develop- 
ment of romance. Just beneath us here the river 
sweeps again t the precipitous rocky base of the 
mountain, and along the sides of this precipice a 
path has been hewn for the railway, leaving it at 
this place subject to the control of any force' 
which should hold the mountain. General Grant's 
first move upon assuming command was directed 
to overcoming this difficulty and to relieving his 



— 17 — 

communications. In company with General 
Thomas and General Smith he rode over Moccasin 
Point (a part of the river valley, so named from 
its form, caused by the windings of the river) to 
examine the crossiugs at Brown's ferry. As a 
result General Smith was ordered to prepare, at a 
secluded point up the river above the city, sixty 
pontoon boats, where they could not be seen by 
the enemy on Lookout. At the proper moment 
the boats, manned by 1800 men under the imme- 
diate command of Gen. Hazen, were to drop down 
the river under cover of darkness, seize the crossing 
and await for morning, when a co-operating force, 
having crossed Moccasin point with other bridge 
material, should be ready to help construct and 
defend the bridge. 

When all was ready and the proper time had 
come General Hazen's eighteen hundred men 
of Smith's command embarked on their pon- 
toon boats and without a word of conversation 
or the dipping of an oar, were floating down the 
river as silently as spectres. In the darkness their 
boats almost touched the shore occupied by the 
rebels, and they could hear their conversation as 
they glided noiselessly by. Before dawn they had 
seized the crossing, captured another rebel outpost, 
ferried over their comrades who had marched 
across the neck of the point, and secured the 
heights overlooking the ferry. By 10 o'clock the 
next morning a pontoon bridge was ready for our 
men, who crossed in f prce, driving the rebels before 



— 18 — 

them, and before night they communicated with 
General Hooker who had marched up the valley 
from Bridgeport. 

This was the initial move of General Grant's 
great victories at Chattauooga and vicinity. It 
was the move on which the success of all the 
others depended. Without it Hooker's victory 
a above the clouds " would have been impossible, 
for he commanded only 10,000 men, and without 
that bridge over which our men could quickly 
inarch to his relief, Bragg could have easily con- 
centrated on him and crushed him before help 
could have arrived. 

That must have been a discouraging view on 
which the Johnnies looked down from this point 
the next morning. When they went to sleep that 
night they confidently expected to capture the 
entire Yankee army. They did not see how any 
possible contingency could prevent it. But in the 
morning when the mists rolled away their hopes 
vanished with them ; for they saw a bridge across 
the river and the whole valley on the south of it 
swarming with blue coats. Hooker had emerged 
from the woods and mountain passes to the south- 
west and had formed a junction with Smith. That 
was an end to the bright dream. Their flank was 
threatened; and when Hookers men climbed the 
mountain side and struck the rebel left flank just 
under the bluff here, the rebels ran almost at the 
first volley. Their confidence was shaken. They 
didn't know how many Yankees might have 



— 19 — 

climbed the mountain farther south, presently to 
catch them in the rear. 

This recalls a similar exploit which was assigned 
to a part of the writers regiment farther down the 
river near Stevenson. 

Volunteers were called for; two hundred and 
fifty responded, of whom fifty were selected 
and placed under the command of Lieutenant 
Brown of Company C. A little after midnight he 
reached the place where the crossing was to be 
made. Noislessly, and under cover of the deep dark 
ness which prevailed, he disposed his men in three 
ranks. With the greatest care to make no noise — 
not to break a twig on the shore nor make any 
splashing in the water — these men forded the 
river, then at a low stage, sprang upon the aston - 
ished rebels and gagged them into silence almost 
before they could utter a word of surprise. Only 
a single gun was discharged and that by accident; 
but it aroused no suspicion, for the firing of an 
occasional shot by the outposts was an ordinary 
thing. Here our men were compelled to wait in 
the sharp cold of that October night, wet and 
shivering, without any fire of course, and almost 
without moving for fear of arousing the rebel 
camp, which was not a mile away. In due time 
the relief guards came ; but they walked into the 
open ranks of our men and were seized before 
they could fire a shot. Presently morning came. 

Here, before us, like a great relief map, is the 
picture of the whole theatre. If we only had a 



— 20 — 

pointer six or seven miles long, with strength to 
Avield it, we could put it down on every spot of 
which I have spoken. Men look "powerful small 1 ' 
down "yon" in the valley; but you can see them 
with wonderful distinctness. If the confederates 
were not too badly "skeered" they could have count- 
ed almost every man of Hookers and Smith's com- 
mands on that memorable morning when they 
awoke to the fact that their left flank had been 
turned. Over yonder is Brown's ferry. Here right 
beneath us is the steep mountain side up 
which Hooker's men came till they were 
caught in a cloud so dark they dared not 
move further, and camped where they were. 
Just before us we can count every bend of 
the tortuous river course, down which those 
noiseless pontoons floated. As to being " above 
the clouds," it is a common experience with those 
who spend any time on the mountain. Even now 
a little cloud is scurrying aloug yonder beneath 
us. I have seen the whole valley covered so 
thickly that not a house or a tree could be seen. 
Beneath was a great sea of rolling, billowing mist, 
sometimes pouring its rain so that we could hear 
it pattering on the leaves two hundred feet below, 
when not a drop was falling on us. Then I have 
seen those clouds lift, first gently parting and 
permitting one to look through upon the freshly 
watered fields and gardens of the valley ; then I 
have seen them rolling away in silent majesty 
like great white chariots of the sky, leaving the 



- 21- 

whole glorious scene unobscured. The farms and 
houses of the valley — how they rejoiced in the fresh 
beauty added' by their new baptism. The trees — 
how they sparkled in the sunshine, a thousand 
myriad drops glistening pendant from the leaves, 
and every drop a diamond. The city yonder with 
every harsher tone subdued and all its voices 
blended into a gentle, harmonious murmur and 
every repulsive sight smoothed away by its 
distance, how gentle and how peaceful; how 
unlike the turmoil of war or even the con- 
fusions of daily commerce. Oh yes, you will 
know what it is to be "above the clouds" if 
you spend a few days on the mountain. It is no 
myth. The men of Hooker's were actually "above 
the clouds" when they achieved that memorable 
victory on the 24th of November, 1863. 

Several questions instantly spring up as one 
looks down from this precipice, where the 
Johnnies had their battery, and where their 
breastworks are still, though overgrown by small 
pine trees. " Why didn't they annihilate our men- 
with shot and shell and cannister as they came up 
the mountain side?" I have heard the question 
often asked. A German of our command 
answered it by saying: "You see, dose Shonnies 
was nod able to elewate dem guns enough as to 
shoot down dot precipice." The fact is that their 
artillery was entirely useless as against Hooker's 
men. It would have burst any gun to depress it 



— 22 — 

sufficiently to lire into any command on the 
mountain side, or even at the mountain's base. 

"Why didn't they hurl down rocks on them?" 
asks another. Because after our men got near 
enough for such warfare to harm them, they 
charged the rebels and the- rebels ran and things 
were very soon so badly mixed that the Johnnies 
who looked down from the bluff could not be 
certain whose heads their rocks 'would light on. 
So the rock practice was not very extensively 
indulged. 

Fort Wood, so plainly seen yonder on the 
hillside to the northeast of the city, recalls an 
incident of General Grant related to me by one 
who saw it. It was early in the morning of the 
25th, the day on which occurred the memorable 
battles of the Chattanooga valley and on Mission- 
ary Ridge. Things were already beginning to 
stir. Observant ones could see that the decisive 
day had come. My friend, the surgeon of a 
Michigan regiment, was up early and looking over 
the ground from Fort Wood. The men of the 
fort's garrison were for the most part still in their 
tents, but all along the crest of the hills occupied 
by the rebels and throughout our advanced lines 
he could see the movements of preparation and 
expectancy. There was no noise about it. It was 
the gentle movement of the clouds in that awful 
hush which precedes the tornado. Just then a 
plainly attired horseman rode up, unattended save 
by a single soldier who held his horse as he dis- 



-2ft- 

inounted and entered the fort. He wore a slouch 
hat and common soldier's overcoat, displaying no 
badge of office to distinguish him from the plainest 
private. My friend had never seen him before, 
but instantly recognized him from familiarity 
with his picture. It was General Grant. He 
had come up with his field glass to look over the 
situation. As he stood on the crest of the fort, 
looking first at Missionary Ridge, then at Lookout 
Point, then along the rebel lines in the valley, 
puffing his cigar in the intervals, the guard, walk- 
ing his beat in front of the guns, approached him 
without salute and said, " It is against orders to 
smoke here. 11 But the General was intent on his 
observations and did not hear, or at all events 
paid no heed. The guard having walked the 
lenth of his beat and returned, again said: "I told 
you it was against orders to smoke here." Again 
the guard turned on his heel, but the observations 
and fumigations proceeded as before. When, 
however, he returned a third time and found the 
silent man still smoking and observing, his 
wrath was up, and raising his voice to 
a very decided key he said, using also 
some words of emphasis which I will not 
repeat, " I have told you twice that it is against 
orders for any man to smoke by these guns, 
now if you don't throw away that cigar I will 
put you in the guard house ! " Without uttering 
a word, without so much as removing the field 
glass from his eyes, the general threw his smoking 



— 24 — 

stub over the ramparts and went on with his 
observations. My friend thought it was time that 
some one should be acquainted with the rank of 
the visitor and finding one of the officers of the 
garrison just emerging in a half -dressed condition 
from his tent, said to him, " Do you know who 
that is up yonder with the field glass?" "No,'' 
said the lieutenant, "Who is he?" "That is 
General Grant." Then followed a scene in which 
the lieutenant, having hastily donned the rest of 
his uniform, approached the General to assure him 
that the guard was unacquainted with his rank. 
Probably Grant thought no more of the officer for 
apologizing, because his subordinate had simply 
done his duty. 

It is not my purpose to tell again the story of 
that great day's fighting. Fall many times it has 
been told already, how Hooker moved down the 
mountain side ; and up the Chattanooga creek, 
building a temporary bridge to replace the one 
burnt b} T the rebels as they retreated from here the 
day before; crossing the bridge, striking the enemy 
in flank and pushing Osterhaus's division on to 
Rossville where they seized the gap through 
Missionary Ridge; how as soon as it 
was fully daylight Sherman began the 
attack on the north end of the Ridge, Gen. Corse 
moving to the assault along the crest, supported 
by Morgan L. Smith's division on the east side 
and Col. Loomis with Gen. J. E. Smith along the 
west side, keeping alignment with Corse in the cen- 



~- 25 — 

ter; how the 40th Illinois, and 20th and 46th Ohio, 
pushed directly up the face of the hill held hy the 
enemy, near the tunnel, maintained a hand-to- 
hand fight for more than an hour, meeting with 
fearful loss. It was here that gallant Gen. Corse 
was severely wounded. Thus matters stood at 
2 o'clock in the afternoon. During the forenoon 
the fighting had been all on the flanks. Grant 
had been waiting for Hooker to get possession of 
the pass at Rossville, and for Sherman to carry 
the enemy's works at the north end of the Ridge. 
Thus far the Army of the Cumberland had been 
impatiently waiting in line, and many of the men 
were complaining bitterly that the leading part 
of the fight was given to other armies. They felt 
that it was intended to rebuke them for the defeat 
of Chickamauga. So loud did these complaints 
become that Thomas sent members of his staff 
down the line to say, "Be patient, boys! Your turn 
will come." At 2 o'clock it came. By this time 
the rebels had been pressed back until both flanks 
rested on the Ridge. Hooker had gained the pass 
and was ready to assault along the Ridge from the 
south again, striking the enemy in the left flank, 
which he did in most gallant style. But the turn 
of the Army of the Cumberland had come 
and the word was given for Thomas to ad- 
vance. Eagerly the men obeyed. Baird's, 
Wood's, Sheridan's and Johnson's divisions, 
springing forward and refusing to be in the 
least checked by the enemy's withering fire, drove 



— 26 — 

them pell-mell from their rifle pits at the base of 
the Ridge; where, hardly stopping to readjust their 
lines, they broke over the breast-work and 
followed the enemy up the steep ascent, Sheridan's 
and Wood's divisions leading. Before this, along 
our entire front every cannon had been pouring 
its storm of iron upon the Ridge; but now they 
gradually drew off, their heavy thunder by degrees 
ceasing until on our side only the incessant 
volleys of musketry could be heard, for our men 
were advancing towards the crest and the artillery 
fire could not be maintained without peril to them. 
Just as the sun went down the crest was gained. 
From a blaze of musketry and a booming of can- 
non, suddenly all was still. The enemy's gans 
had been captured and there was nothing more for 
our's to do. The memorable victory of Chat- 
tanooga and Missionary Ridge had been won and 
the rebels were in full retreat upon Chickamauga. 
Over there is where it all happened. Here at 
our feet is Chattanooga Creek emptying into the 
Tennessee at the base of the mountain. There too, 
in plain sight, is the valley where the crescent 
front of the enemy's line awaited the attack. 
Farther on is the Ridge, up whose steep sides our 
boys charged and where many hundreds of them 
lay down to die. A number of the rebel forts 
along the crest and much of the . breastwork are 
still there. The weeds have captured them easily 
and the cattle roam over them at will ; but once 
their possession was disputed by two mighty 
armies, and to get them an unspeakable price was 
paid. 



xi tf^e gad^Ie. 



ringgold and tunnel hill — the woman spy — 
on the field of chickamauga — reception" by 
the mountaineers— Johnston's dam. 

From Chattanooga on to Atlanta I had purposed 
to make frequent stops at the stations of interest, 
such as Ringgold, Tunnel Hill, and so on. But a 
more excellent plan presented itself while I was 
conversing with a company of my fellow guests of 
the Lookout Mountain House, as we looked off 
into the valleys and over the battle-ground of 
Chickamauga. 

"Why not buy a horse and ride through to 
Atlanta as Major Van Bibber and his wife did last 
May?" 

I had indeed thought of this before, but had 
supposed that the price of saddle animals would 
preclude the idea. But when I learned that I could 
procure a good horse at a moderate sum, with the 
reasonable certainty of selling again in Atlanta, 
I did so at once, transferred a part of my baggage 
to my saddle bags, and was ready for a start. 

During the day I had met one of the mountain- 
eers, whose home is seven miles south of the point 
of Lookout, and within half a mile of the mar- 
velous Lulu Lake ; which from generation to 

- 27 



~~ 2S - 

generation is held in the teeth of these eternal 
rocks, above the clouds. He had during the war 
been a member of one of our Pennsylvania regi- 
ments. But his regiment was mustered out here 
on the mountain, and having fallen in love with 
one of the native East Tennessee girls, whom 
Thomas had employed as a spy, he married her, 
and settled where he now lives, just beyond 
the Tennesee line on Lookout Mountain, in 
northern Georgia. Having now for a decade and 
a half lived among the poor whites of this region, 
he has become thoroughly separated from north- 
ern traditions and customs, and as thoroughly 
identified with theirs. His speech, manner of life, 
and all about him are thoroughly southern rather 
than northern. He invited me to spend the 
night so cordially that I determined to do so, 
because there would be no other opportunity to 
see the lake, and because he promised in the 
morning to ride with me from his home over the 
battle-field of Chickamauga. 

Having waved an adieu to my newly formed 
acquaintances at the Lookout House, I set out and 
reached my host's home just at sundown. It was 
a beautiful evening; the day had been warm; 
darkness had not yet settled, and a swim in the 
lake was at once proposed. 

You reach the border of the lake on a high 
bluff, from which you look down into it, 60 feet j 
below, and wonder how you are to get down. But I 
see! There is a plank laid from the shelving rock 



— 29 — 

to the topmost branches of that pine tree which 
grows up. from beneath. Out on that plank you 
walk; then descend on the limbs of the tree, 
which serve very well ; till - you reach the rickety 
ladder which has been set up from the ground 
to the lower branches Here we are ready for a 
plunge in the lake, which has no beach, and 
whose bottom no line has ever touched ! Out of it 
the water flows in a stream which dashes a few 
rods over the rocks and then plunges headlong 
down a, fall of 115 feet; thence through a most 
wild and beautiful gorge, whose wall on either 
side is nearly 200 feet high, finally reaching the 
flume of an enterprising miller. It would require 
the genius of a Poe to describe properly the weird 
and wild grandeur of the place. The story of my 
hostess was a strange one — full of adventures and 
escapes during the time she was employed as a 
spy. At one time she escaped detection only by 
eating the paper which she was bearing to Gen. 
Thomas. Her seven children gathered about me 
full of open eyed curiosity at my field glass, my 
writing material, my maps and even my pocket- 
knife, which seemed most of all to attract their 
envy. 

Early in the morning (July 27th) we were in 
the saddle and proceeding by the narrow and 
poorly kept road, down the many precipitous 
windings to the valley beneath, through which we 
at once rode to the valley of Chickamauga. My 
friend had been in the battle; but although living 



— 30 — 

so near to the old ground had never taken the 
pains to go over it since the war. The scars of 
that fearful struggle are still numerous and plain. 
Here and there are great tree-tops lopped by shot 
aod shell ; and still hanging by a splinter to the 
trunk. Thousands of trees are pitted with 
ballets — those of the pines showing plainest. 
Everywhere that a ball struck a pine tree, a little 
knot of rosin has formed, which, removed, reveals 
the bullet. These are being continually dug out 
by relic hunters, who leave the marks of an ax 
in their places. For some days the bodies of 
our men who fell here were left by the victorious 
enemy uoburied. But to-day they lie in the 
beautiful cemetery at Chattanooga, every grave 
marked with a neat stone; while the confederates lie 
in graves where they were at first buried, with only 
a wooden slab or stake to mark each spot. Unless 
something is done by their friends these perish- 
able marks will have passed away and the places 
will be forgotten. 

By noon my friend had satisfied his curiosity. 
We had ridden quite over the Chickamauga ground. 
He pointed out to me the different places which 
his regiment occupied during the day, the well 
where he had filled his canteen and other points 
of especial interest to him , and having done so, 
reined about his horse and left me to pursue my 
journey alone. 

Although, doubtless, the life of any lone traveler 
through the South is just as safe as in any part of 



— 31 — 

the land, yet I was living not so much in the pres- 
ent as amid the potent memories Of the past, when 
no man could ride a mile in these parts without 
danger of running into an ambush of the enemy. 
For a time, therefore, the spell of such memories 
was upon me. In the South there are few 
buggies; men and women travel on horseback. A 
while, my first impulse upon beholding the 
approach of a butternut-clad horseman was to 
reach for the old revolver or carbine, and cry out: 
"Halt, there!" Then reason would re-assert 
herself and I would find myself by the side of 
some former member of Johnston's army, ready to 
drawl out his answers to my questions as pleasant- 
ly as he knew how. 

• About one o'clock, just before crossing Chicka- 
mauga Hill into Ringgold, I stopped at the cabin 
of a poor white family and bought a feed of oats 
for my horse, expecting to write up these notes 
beneath the shade of the trees, by the beautiful 
mountain spring. But the invitation to a place 
within was so cordial that I was constrained to 
accept. The occupants are a young couple who 
have just set up for themselves. They have 
rented this cottage and a few acres at the foot of 
the hills. They have a small patch of corn, of 
beans and cotton. This is their living for the year. 

We were only well seated on the shady side of 
the house, when he enquired: 

** Wha 1 mout you be fruin ? I reckin by your 
speech you hain't no Jawgian." 



— 32 — 

"Well, now, 1 ' I answered, "I will let you 
guess what my speech is, since you think truly 
that I'm not a Georgian." 

" Be you a Dutchman?" he queried, slowly and 
doubtfully. 

"No." 

"French, then?" 

"No." 

"Mout be, then, you is Irish?" 

"No! I'm what you folks down here call a 
Yankee, some five or six hundred miles from 
home, and I'm riding through here to see the old 
battlefields." 

This information astonished mm and his good 
wife greatly. They had " hyearn tell a powerful 
heap about the wah; but they 'uns was too young 
tew know much about it themselves." 

A mile this side of Ringgold I was overtaken by 
a gentlemen mounted on a huge mule, who rode 
alongside and was disposed to be talkative. He, 
too, was a young man, and was on his way to East 
Tennessee. He informed me that he was acquaint- 
ed with all the roads in northern Georgia, having 
ridden them over in purchasing cattle for the 
market. He readily answered an inquiry or two; 
but I was the less in need of his information, for 
my memory of southern places is vivid ; and 
moreover I had provided myself with a copy of 
Sherman's field map, which indicates every road 
in the region. 

My novel appearance attracted his attention. 



— 33 — 

My saddle-bags were like those o£ a doctor and my 
umbrella was slung across my back, as the 
infantry used to arrange their blankets. 

M I reckon, 1 ' he ventured, "that you are a doctor, 
from the looks of your saddle-bags." I satisfied 
his curiosity by assuring him that I was a simon- 
pure Yankee, skylarking through the South, 
with no hostile intentions either to molest or make 
afraid; and we separated with the best of feeling. 

Ringgold is a sleepy little place, of perhaps four 
or five hundred inhabitants, nestled in among the 
mountains. Its importance during the war was 
derived from its location on the railroad which 
runs to Atlanta. It has changed scarcely at all, so 
far as I could see. There are two or three little 
churches, a large academic looking building, and 
business blocks with the dwellings. 

Between Ringgold and Tunnel Hill I passed 
through those remarkable mountain fastnesses 
where it was vainly hoped that Johnston could 
stay the progress of the invader. As of old, there 
are no bridges over any stream where a ford can 
be made to answer the purpose, and we splashed 
on into the water, belly-deep, and out again, sev- 
eral times during the afternoon. 

" Won't you 'light and take a cheer? " was the 
greeting of a gentleman who sat in his shaded front 
yard near the well, and of whom I had asked a 
drink. He had been a rebel soldier, and from his 
own doorstep could look around him upon the 
historic hills of his soldiering. With the usual 



— 34 — 

inquisitiveness of the South, he was not long in 
ascertaining that I was a northern " radical," for 
I did not mince matters in answering, any more 
than he in asking. " Well, well ! " he said, " I 
can respect even an abolitionist who has the 
courage to stick to his principles in the South !" 

Onward from Ringgold for several miles the 
valley farms are rich and covered with a rank 
growth of corn and cotton. There are here but 
few remaining marks of the war, for the space of 
eight or nine miles, save in the gap just south of 
Ringgold, where some severe fighting occurred. 
But words can scarcely describe the utter poverty 
of some of the higher mountain farms which I 
passed earlier in the day. The land labors be- 
neath its own natural sterility and the utterly 
inadequate tillage to send up sickly - looking 
shoots of corn of all sizes, from the tender blade 
just emerging from the ground to the tall, spind- 
ling stalk, which seems to be waiting for some 
friendly gale to blow it over and end its misery. 

The cultivators of these miserable farms are 
the negroes and poor whites — in about even 
numbers — with the balance of respectability in 
favor of the negroes. The whole country has 
been tuned to a departed system. It is like an 
instrument whose strings are broken and whose 
master has gone. The negroes, unused to their 
freedom, live miserably, with no one to plan for 
them. They are scorned by, and in turn they 
scorn equality with, the poor whites. Near the 



— 35 — 

field of Chickamauga, within a few rods of each 
other, I passed two miserable, unchinked log 
school buildings. In one were gathered a few 
half -naked little darkies; in the other a few half- 
naked, dirty and ragged little "white trash, 1 ' 
which does not look as if the advance towards 
abolition of race prejudice had yet amounted to a 
great deal. And this is the common thing in 
Georgia; separate schools, separate teachers, 
multiplied expenses, and divided results. In 
more prosperous communities I saw, later in my 
journey, cleaner and brighter children, and evi- 
dences of good teaching, but everywhere the 
colored and white children are taught in separate 
schools. The school buildings, except in the 
villages, are almost always log structures; some- 
times they are of plain boards, but invariably 
unpainted and weather-beaten. The wagon-roads 
are not confined by fences to township or section 
boundaries, but wind along, conforming to the 
rugged features of the country- — to the mount- 
ains, the valleys and the streams. 

Tunnel Hill, a little village of perhaps 400 
people, derives its name and importance from its 
proximity to the tunnel which penetrates the hill 
just south of its outskirts. 

The hotel is an old wooden building with a 
broad veranda facing the depot, and kept by 
" Dr." Emmerson, a genial old soul with hospit- 
able proclivities, and a reputation as a landlord 
which extends beyond - his locality. I had 



— 36 — 

been here but a little while before a tall, dark- 
complexioned, fine appearing gentleman drove up 
with his family and put up for the night. We 
were soon on easy terms, and were not loug in 
learning that " we had met before." That is to 
say, during the Atlanta campaign he belonged to 
Wheeler's cavalry, which during all the move- 
ments of Johnston's army occupied the right 
wing. I belonged to Garrard's cavalry, which 
during the same period was on Sherman's ex- 
treme left, which opposed us directly to Wheeler, 
with whom we had, in those days, many a brush. 
From the veranda where we sat he pointed me 
the spot where his tent was pitched, and where he 
used to graze his horse during the occupation of 
the Confederate troops. 

Just beyond Tunnel Hill, as will be remem- 
bered, is Buzzard's Roost Gap — a narrow defile, 
through which there flows a considerable stream. 
Johnston dammed it up, so as to flood the pass, 
and then sat down to wait for Gen. Sherman to 
march his men in and let them drown. But our 
" Uncle Billy " climbed the hill, looked down 
upon the dam and the big pond, and sent 
McPherson around to the right and rear to 
threaten the enemy's communications, by Snake 
Creek Gap, at Resaca. And one fine morning, 
while General Johnston was complacently watch- 
ing his dam and telling everybody about what a 
fine thing he had on Sherman, a scout dashed up 
and declared tjiat the Yankees were flanking by 



— 87 — 

Snake Creek Gap ! It is presumable that John- 
ston gave utterance to some hasty words about 
his dam. Concerning that, however, I am not 
informed. One thing I do know, none the less: 
The scout who brought the unwelcome news was 
a young man, about 17 years of age, a member of 
Wheeler's cavalry then, but now my genial com- 
panion on Dr. Emmerson's veranda, a merchant 
of Chattanooga — Mr. Peeples. 

[t was the first of that grand series ot flank 
movements by which Sherman penetrated the 
"heart of the Confederacy and destroyed its most 
important railroad center with one of the most 
brilliant and successful campaigns in the annals 
of civil war. 



Mfypoufy \?ale and Gor^e. 

CAUGHT OFF HIS BALANCE—THE ETHIOPIAN CHANG- 
ING HIS SKIN— CAMPAIGN MARKS — WAITING 
FOR THE NEWS OF TWENTY YEARS BEFORE — A 
SUSPICIOUS URCHIN. 

The morning was bright and beautiful, though 
the air was almost cool enough to make a fire 
desirable, when I mounted my horse for a ride 
over the hills and through the gorges to Dalton, 
distant nine miles. No element was lacking to 
complete my enjoyment. The horse was in good 
trim; I had been well breakfasted; the scenery 
was of the most beautiful, and every mile was 
fraught with historic incident. Add to this the 
sense of freedom from care, the breadth and 
fullness of thought which mountain scenery is 
calculated to inspire, and the feeling of satisfac- 
tion which comes of fulfilling long - cherished 
desire, and you have the emotions which kin- 
dled within me at that hour. 

Buzzard's Roost is a good place to laugh. The 
more one thinks about the old dam — but see! 
yonder comes a typical Southerner, his length 
and leanness matching well with his sallow com- 
plexion, his slouch gray hat, and his loose-fitting 
gray clothing. He is leading a wiry steer down 
to the stream to drink. The steer behaves well 



enougn until he is full length of the rope in the 
water and our friend, the owner, stands on tip-toe 
bending his utmost length to accommodate the 
steer's desire to go further, when, of a sudden, 
his steership makes a dash for the further side, 
fairly jerking his owner off his feet and landing 
him in the stream ! Of course he got away and 
came tearing up the road, followed hy the owner, 
who muttered, as he passed me, that the steer was 
a "mighty contra-ry critter/' which I had no 
occasion to doubt. 

* The heavy earthworks which at one time 
guarded the approaches of the Gap are in large 
measure obliterated. One fort stands, and traces 
of the dam are still visible. These are all that I 
could find. The old mill by the road-side, turned 
by the water of this stream, clatters away as 
merrily as if its operations had never been dis- 
turbed by the affairs of war. 

Dalton has grown considerably since the war, 
and presents a scene of some enterprise and thrift 
along its one business street, lined with old brick 
buildings. Its public buildings are in better 
condition than is usual to the region and its 
residences appear as if its 3,000 citizens might 
enjoy themselves even with the ghost of a lost 
cause standing over them. The hotels front 
towards the depot on the west, while on the east 
is the same old hill, crowned by the same familiar 
earthworks, which stand out as sharp and bare as 
the day that they were dug. Not a tree or 



— 40 — 

shrub has grown upon them. Whether it is be- 
cause the ground is too poor, or that the citizens 
are especially careful to keep this prominent relic 
in repair, I did not enquire. 

Resaca now is our next point, and away we gal- 
lop, over a barren and hilly road during a good share 
of the journey. Most of the time I can lookoff in 
almost any direction across the valleys, and behold 
the beautiful mountain ranges which have given 
to northern Georgia the name of the "Switzer- 
land of America.'" One thing would soon become 
apparent to one who saw this country 16 years 
ago. Then the negroes were of all possible shades, 
varying from the deep, pure-blooded black to an 
unnatural whiteness ; now you rarely see a " white 
nigger, 1 ' and the "yaller niggers" are very 
"skace." What can have wrought this change? 
At one time it was argued that the only hope for 
the colored race was that they might, by the slow 
process of "natural selection" and "survival of 
the fittest," become " bleached out," get the kinks 
out of their hair, and have their brains broadened. 
Can it be possible that some fell scheme is work- 
ing against these bright hopes and is destined to 
overthrow them ? It has, on the other hand, been 
affirmed that those negroes who have lost any of 
their color have at some time been frightened in 
such a way as to turn them partially white, which 
might readily have happened in those days, when 
the overseers were the terror of the plantation. 
In such a case the process must be regarded as 



_ 41 _ 

abnormal and injurious. Doubtless since the 
overseers have ceased to "frighten" the blacks the 
disturbing cause has been removed, and all things 
may proceed in regular channels. Every negro 
may now retain his color unmolested as a part of 
his ancestral heritage, with none to "frighten" or 
"whiten" him. I claim no patent on this expla- 
nation. Any southern gentleman who objects to 
it, or thinks it unscientific, is at liberty to modify 
or improve it, at his pleasure. 

The marks of by-gone campaigning become 
more and more pronounced as we proceed. Many 
of the old fences, which were torn down for camp 
fires, and whose line is still traceable by rotten re- 
mains of the lower rail, have hot been replaced; 
and the fields which they enclosed lie open and 
waste. At other points fences have been rebuilt, 
and at such places you may see every now and 
then a charred rail which was not wholly de- 
stroyed, though it received a scorching. Occas- 
ionally, too, we strike a place in the woods where 
heavy skirmishing left its lasting marks upon the 
trees, to say to the generations following: "We 
heard the sound and felt the jar when the Al- 
mighty went forth to avenge the oppressed, and to 
answer the cries of his children ! " 

About noon I met a negro with a span of 
mules, drawing a load of oats in the bundle, and 
purchased one or two bundles for a wayside feed. 
Finding one of the poor whites' shanties close by, 
where I could procure water, I stopped and fed. 



_ 42 — 

The old woman of the place " 'lowed I could git a 
goord o' water, altho 1 leastwise she reckined 
'twa'nt pow'ful good," and ventured the remark: 
u Hit does a hoss a pow'ful heap o' good to stop 
an\ let 'im take a leetle snack when one is 
travelin 1 ." 

T inquired the distance to Resaca. Neither 
she nor her grown daughter, who was busy with 
her washing out under the trees, could give any 
definite answer, although this had been their 
home for some time; and furthermore, as I 
saw a few minutes later, they live within forty 
rods of a guide-board, with the distance and direc- 
tion on it. 

The utter blankness of the poor whites' minds 
is beyond comprehension, and is not adequately 
understood by the wealthier and better informed 
people within a few miles of whom they live. 
Some of this latter class seemed astonished at 
several incidents of my travel which I related to 
them. I met one man who remarked: " I don't 
reckin you kin tell me what they've done with 
Jeff Davis, kin ye?" As a class they have no 
conception of the simplest and most general 
movements of the political world, with one of 
whose parties they will vote. I found those who 
had not heard the names of Garfield or Hancock, 
who knew nothing of the conventions at Chicago 
or Cincinnati, nor indeed the significance of any 
convention. Taking no paper, not able to read 
those which sometimes come to their houses 



<- 43 - 

Wrapped about packages, isolated from the cen- 
ters of traffic and news, they gossip over and 
over again the few items which they gathered 
years ago. Numbers of them supposed that 
"Grant was gwine to run agin," and I spent 
some time in an attempt to set them right, and 
no doubt gave them news enough to last a year! 

A few miles ride, and you are in another world. 
You have descended from the mountain; you are 
in the valley, where fatness and plenty are on 
every hand; where the marks of the war have in 
great measure disappeared; where wealthy farms, 
with their quota of employed hands, have taken 
the place of the plantations with their drove of 
"niggers," owned and marshaled beneath the 
lash. It is something when the former master is 
forced to own the form of " employing " his 
" niggers," even though the poor black may get 
but meagre compensation. 

Then, too, there is every allowance to be made 
for the employer. The war ate up his resources, 
burned his buildings, destroyed his fences and 
deprived him of his laborers in one. Do we ac- 
cuse the South of bitterness? Let any man ride 
one day with me over this war-wasted land ; let 
him forget the great principles for which the war 
was waged and which rendered it righteous; let 
him remember only that other and contrary prin- 
ciples were deeply entertained by the South, and 
that once these charred remains were smiling and 
happy homes; let him remember that these same 



_ a _ 

a*oads, over which we are now passing in review, 
were once the scene of marching invaders by the 
thousand, and foraging forays by the hundred — 
then let him ask himself : Suppose that matters 
had been reversed; suppose that this devastation 
had been wrought at the North instead of at-the 
South, and that years afterward one who had 
wrought at that devastation should come North 
to view the ruins? Think you he would every- 
where be kindly received and entertained? Al- 
though I have answered frankly everywhere with 
regard to the nature and object of my visit, this* 
has been my uniform experience. 

At Resaca I put up an hour or two at the 
hotel. The grocery fronts here, as at almost every 
village, were lined with men clad in gray, appar- 
ently without anything to do. Their horses or 
mules were fastened to a common hitching ar- 
rangement, consisting of a long pole sustained on 
posts, higher than the animals' heads, and having 
pegs driven into the top at convenient intervals ; 
so that when the survivor of Wheeler's cavalry, 
or his descendants, ride into town, they have only 
to throw the bridle rein over one of these pegs, 
and the horse is hitched 

The fort and rifle trenches on the hill to the 
west of town, which cover Snake Creek Gap, are 
still here, and are less obscured by trees than is 
common. Here flows the same deep, sluggish 
and muddy Snake Creek which McPherson 
crossed and re-crossed again, because he did not 



— 45 — 

dare to interpose his single Army of the Ten- 
nessee between Johnston's entire army and its 
line of retreat. Had he done so, doubtless John- 
ston would have been forced to surrender at the 
very opening of the campaign. But it takes the 
very highest order of genius to perceive such an 
opportunity, and the highest order of ability to 
improve it. Sherman justifies the caution, but 
regrets its results. 

On we go through the famous gap, over 
the ground of the Resaea fight, past the tower- 
ing hills and through the pine forests, heavy with 
their resinous aroma and fragrant with rem- 
iniscences of the times when the old pine-knot 
fires blazed and crackled throughout the lively 
camp; when the coffee and meat kettles hung 
over them by hastily erected cranes; when 
hastily dressed roasters and sheep were made 
ready to season and enlarge the regular fare. 

Speaking of roasters: A short way out of 
Resaca a fine little fellow stopped across my 
track and looked up quizzingly as if to remark, 
in the vernacular of the region: " Be yew one of 
Gin'al Sherman's men? Den dis pig takes to de 
woods!" and away he went as fast as his legs 
could carry him. 

Here as we near Calhoun are the same gates 
which bar the approach to the bridge and valley 
of the Oostenaula river. These gates are a feature 
of every approach of the river, and are necessary 
to protect the rich crops of the valley. No cross 



— 46 — 

fences can be maintained because of the annual 
flood. But one lateral fence borders the outer 
edge of the valley, running parallel with the river. 

Calhoun has brushed off the bullet marks and 
other scratches of the war, but has done little in 
the way of enterprise. That which we should call 
u enterprise " in the North would seem so utterly 
out of place at any of these little Georgian villages 
that I fear the corn would be frost-bitten if they 
should have a slight attack of it. Cattle run ad 
libitum; the hogs root around the streets, and up 
to the very doors of the hotels, in the most famil- 
iar manner, thrusting aside the foot of the easy 
landlord if they chance to sniff some coveted mor- 
sel beneath it! And should any fastidious traveler 
attempt to drive them away they plant themselves 
firmly and grunt forth their offended dignity in a 
most decided manner. 

Here then is Calhoun, a drowsy little town in 
the midst of her rich cotton fields, just now clad 
in the glory of their white and vermilion bloom. 
Over yonder by the railroad track, just on the 
south-west border, is the grove where we en- 
camped in the fall of 1864, while waiting to take 
the cars north for the defense of Nashville. 

For miles now there are no heavy landmarks of 
the war. Occasionally the trees are scarred with 
the effects of some skirmish. But from the time 
that Johnston let go his hold of Buzzard's Roost 
and the dam, he was kept too busy with getting to 



_ 47 — 

the rear to pause for the digging of many trenches 
until he reached Cassville. 

There is no more beautiful land in the world 
than that which constitutes some of the farms in 
the valleys between Calhoun and Adairsville. 

As I neared the latter village I overtook a young 
man who was on his way to attend protracted 
meeting. We were soon joined by several others. 
They were evidently curious, if not suspicious of 
me. But when I had satisfied their curiosity and 
allayed their suspicions they became very sociable. 
They evidently belonged to the wealthy families of 
this region. They invited me to go with them to 
the meeting; but as my horse was already blown, 
I declined and hastened forward to Adairsville. 
The latter part of July and the fore part of August 
is the regular season for protracted meetings in 
the South. Wheat harvest is out of the way and 
cotton is beyond the need of daily care; so that 
from now on to "de shuckin' ob de corn" there 
will be comparative leisure. 

Adairsville differs from its neighboring villages 
in that it has a cotton factory and one or two 
other mills of consequence. The employes of 
these mills give an. unusually lively appearance to 
the one business street, which fronts on the rail- 
road, having an open plaza. And were it not for 
the fringes of cotton here and there, and the 
occasional line of mountaineers' covered wagons 
coming down to market, one might, at times, 
almost imagine that he were in some northern 



— 4:8 — 

town. The residences stand, for the most part, 
on a beautiful hill which rises from the railroad 
backward, and gives to the village a commanding 
and pleasant appearance. 

The hotel at Adairsville is a large brick build- 
ing, with immense rooms and a broken-down 
appearance. During the occupation of our troops 
it was used as a hospital, but is now occupied by 
Mr. J. C. Martin and family, whose fortunes were 
broken by the war, and who now earn their living 
by entertaining the traveling public. Their his- 
tory, similar to that of many another family, is 
a strange one. Moving from Virginia to East 
Tennessee in the early days of secession, they 
found themselves borne along with the tide of 
passion which demanded separation from the 
Union. But presently the Yankee troops came, 
and they packed their goods and removed to a 
point so far within the rebel lines that they sup- 
posed themselves forever safe, settling a few miles 
from their present home, near Cartersville. But 
in the process of time Sherman's men were 
careering through Georgia and the home which 
they had deemed secure was again threatened. 
The husband, being a pronounced secessionist, 
again fled, and there are surviving members of 
the Ohio cavalry who distinctly remember forag- 
ing at the corn cribs which he had filled. The 
wife and little girls who were then on the plan- 
tation always received these strange visitors 
kindly, but presently there was nothing left 



— 49 — 

but for them also to pack up and follow the 
husband and father within the rebel lines. The 
little girls of those days have grown to woman- 
hood; nor is their refinement the less because cir- 
cumstances have made it necessary for them to 
assist in the affairs of the household. Although 
the father and mother take bravely to their 
altered circumstances, they have not ceased to 
lament the good old days when more than a 
score of negroes uncovered their heads and said 
"Massah" and "Missus 1 ' in their presence. 



On tfye Fj^o&sl to /A&pietta. 

RECKLESSNESS ABOUT HUMAN LIFE — HI8TOEI0 OBI- 
GIN" OE " HOLD THE FOET " — GOLD MINING — 
KENNESAW'S CIRCLET OE CAMP-FIRES. 

Owing to the jaded condition of my horse I did 
not leave Adairsville until afternoon, and conse- 
quently did not attempt more than to reach Cart- 
ersville, 17 miles distant. This ride carried me 
over a steep mountain road during a good share of 
the way, and took in Cassville, where Johnston 
paused in his flight and fortified, expecting to give 
battle to his pursuer. But he was discouraged by 
the counsels of his corps commanders, Polk and 
Hood, who complained that the position which 
they had chosen was already enfiladed by our 
guns. So before morning they had pulled up and 
were gone again, and this time they did not pause 
until beyond the Etowah river and within the 
fastnesses of the Allatoona mountains. 

Cassville was burned by us — all except its 
churches — and has only so far recovered as to 
furnish a rallying-place for the inevitable throng 
of butternut-clad men, who must " meet up " at 
least once a day, and who must have a " grocery" 
to "meet up" at. Cartersville has fared better, 
having arisen not only in equal size, but in greater 



— 51 — 

beauty than ever, from the ashes of her devasta- 
tion. The stores and public buildings front on an 
open square which is divided in the middle by the 
railroad and depot. Three or four public, covered 
wells are an ordinary feature of every southern 
town, and the " screech of the well- wheel " was an 
object of complaint in one of the local papers at 
the time of my visit. The writer thought that 
the 3,500 citizens of Cartersville could afford some- 
thing better and more enterprising. 

An incident transpired just as I arrived which 
created only a passing ripple of excitement, but 
which is on that account the more noticeable. A 
fiery lad of the ordinary southern sort, 15 years 
old, had taken offense at a gentleman in one of 
the stores, and of course the next thing was" to 
whip out his little pistol and shoot at him, which 
he did two or three times. The gentleman who 
informed us came with some haste upon the hotel 
steps and declared: "We've done had a right 
pow'ful little heap o' excitement; and I learned 
time o' the wah that bullets hain't got no eyes, so 
I've done got away soon as ever I could!" It was 
amusing to notice how the offense was regarded 
by those present. One aged man declared that 
'* Ef thet 'ar boy war mine I'd give him a right 
smart lickin' fo' ever he went to bed!" And to 
this they nearly all assented, as expressing their 
views of the punishment which such offense called 
for. A little Jew clothier who has been here 
since the war, however,' dissented: "I dells you 



— 52 — 

vat it ish, shentlemen ; I dells you vat it ish: 
shoost so long effry man and 003^ carries a rewol- 
ver und shoots de first man dot makes him mad, 
shoost so long you gits no emigrants in de South !" 
And he had it about right. There were no arrests 
as a result of the shooting. I did not even learn 
that the young blood got his ki 'lickin 'fore ever he 
went to bed. 1 ' 

From Cartersville Johnston went directly to 
his stronghold at Allatoona Pass. But Sherman 
had no notion of attacking him there in position. 
For, when a j r oung lieutenant, he had been des- 
patched on horseback by the Government 
through these mountains, and had then ob- 
served the natural strength of the position, 
doubtless reflecting as he went how such a point 
might be defended, or assaulted, or flanked! 

The latter course seems to have commended 
itself to the judgment of the youthful observer, 
who little dreamed that he was to become one of 
the greatest generals of history, and that here 
on this very ground he would one day command 
one of the finest armies upon which the sun ever 
shone. The bulk of the army was again moved 
by the right flank, the movement resulting 
in the fearful fighting at New Hope Church, 
some 16 miles south- west, and ultimately 
in the evacuation of Aliatoona. Three miles 
from Cartersville I crossed the Etowah by a rope 
ferry, looked over one or two of our old* camping- 



— 53 — 

places by the river, and climbed the narrow defile 
which penetrates the mountains in the direction 
of Allatoona. 

Here, then, at length, we are in the old fort 
which crowns the south elevation of the hill, 
overlooking the little station of Allatoona. It is 
the spot where General Corse, with his little hand- 
ful of men, withstood the repeated assaults of 
Hood's army on that fearful day in October, 1864, 
when he and his brave men saved to Sherman's 
army the millions of rations stored here. Yonder, 
lifting his head above the lesser hills, and clearly 
seen beyond the 16 miles of intervening ranges 
and valleys, is old Kennesaw, from the top of 
which Sherman watched the progress of events 
here with intensest interest; and where the flag- 
man waved the immortal signal which cheered 
the little garrison then, and which on every Sab- 
bath day is sung by thousands of Sabbath school 
children on this continent and other continents 
now: " Hold the fort, for I am coming. W. T. 
Sherman." This is the spot. The fort is still per- 
fectly defined, though both the enclosure, the em- 
bankments and all the approaches are thickly over- 
grown with small trees. A peach-stone, dropped 
by some one, has grown to maturity, on the 
very crown of the fort, and is laden with stunted 
peaches. I have searched in vain for any leaden 
or iron relic of the day when shot and shell tore 
over and through this spot, making great rents in 
the ground and in human bodies! 



— 54 — 

The last time that I passed this spot a wagon 
load of litnbs ; which had just been amputated by 
our physicians from the rebel wounded, left in our 
possession, was being drawn away for burial. 
Many a poor fellow stumps about through the 
South whose leg is buried beneath this hill. 

Through Ack worth to Big Shanty— how famil- 
iar the names ! How effective to recall the scenes 
of muddy marches, drizzly encampments, dark 
nights of picket duty, and hundreds of skirmishes! 
Here are the same old encampments; here the rifle 
trenches, and here the still numerous wagon roads 
which we cut in all directions, to faciliate our 
movements through these woods. Many of them 
are still kept open by the citizens, and probably in 
a large measure compensate for the rails which we 
here burned. I turned aside from the main road 
to go the more thoroughly over the Big Shanty 
woods, and accosted an old man whose hut has 
stood here for the last 40 years. 

" I reckon you must have lived here during the 
war?" 

"Don't reckon nuthin' 'bout it,'' was his rejoin- 
der, " I war right heah all the while." 

" Was there much fighting here?" 

You should have seen the look of condescending 
pity the old fellow turned upon me as he answered: 

"Much fouten'? Hi reckon thar wuz. Nothin' 
but fouten' frum the fust of June tell the last of 
November or thereabouts. Fouten' all 'round 



these yur woods. Fouten' all the time fur six 
months about Kennesaw Mountain thar." 

I manifested a due degree of interest and contin- 
ued my questions: 

" And you lived here all through it?" 

" Thet ar I did, and hearn the cannon night an' 
day all thet time." 

I did not undeceive hirn nor spoil his self conceit- 
ed superiority of intelligence. The fact is, Ken- 
nesaw was evacuated on the night of the 2d of 
July, and on the morning of the 3d our flag was 
waving proudly where the rebel signal had flaunted 
at us for weeks. 

There are now two active gold mines where our 
camps were located in the Big Shanty woods— one 
on each side of the railroad, the Kendrick and the 
Hamilton. A fine stamping mill is also run in 
connection with them. The last washing yielded 
some $1,600. It is believed that the glittering 
particles, which every soldier of Sherman's army 
will remember to have seen in the sand about Big 
Shanty, indicate that this whole region is sur- 
charged with precious metals, needing only more 
adequate means of separating them from the soil 
and rock. 

But we must not linger in the woods of Big 
Shanty. On we go to the base oT Kennesaw, where 
the old trenches, Yankee and rebel, are still stand- 
ing, at places not more than 50 or 100 feet apart 
— wonderful reminders of the time when every rebel 
stray shot would be followed with the friendly 



— 56 — 

exhortation to "Grab a root!" or to "Lie low!" 
Reminders of the time when, although no one 
would have owned it, there wasn't a man of the 
crowd but would have willingly given a million of 
dollars to be at home — if he could have command- 
ed that sum. And well we might desire to be 
further north. The fateful day of June 27th was 
drawing on— the day when all along those closely 
drawn lines the smoke of battle should arise, and 
when a hundred and fifty thousand men should 
rend the air with sounds of mortal strife. When 
ordered to charge even upon the impregnable 
works of Kennesaw and Pine Mountains, not a 
man wavered, and thousands attested their bravery 
at the cost of their lives. 

But we have lingered long enough at the base — 
up ! up, we go ! Yes, now, after severe climbing, 
we stand again where the confederate flag station 
and ours in turn were planted. We have passed 
at different points of our ascent the posts where 
the confederate batteries were stationed — good 
enough to-day for occupation if they should be 
required. Earth mounds are among the least 
perishable of man's works, when they are un- 
disturbed, as the many relics of the mysterious 
mound builders attest. Our children to the latest 
generation may still find the imperishable scars 
of our great American conflict, if they do but 
care to visit them. 

Look over now towards that lesser peak at our 
left. That is Pine Mountain, where General Polk 



was killed on the 14th of June, 1864, by a gun 
from one of Howard's batteries. It is foolishly 
asserted that the gun was trained by the hand 
of Gen. Sherman in person, who, as they claim, 
recognized Gen. Polk. To have recognized Polk 
at a distance of 800 yards might indeed have been 
possible; but Gen. Sherman denies the story in 
toto. Look further to the left. Yes, there is the 
familiar head of Lost Mountain. Look down at 
this semi-circular base and off upon the adjoining 
hills and valleys. Here are the easily recognized 
sites of hundreds of encampments and thousands 
of camp fires. Who does not remember those 
evenings, when the confederate line could be seen 
by its camp fires, like a circlet of flashing rubies 
about the sides and base of Kennesaw? When 
we could see them go in and come out of their 
tents, and even count their " flap-jacks " as they 
" flopped " them in their skillets ! 

These rocks — they have echoed the boom of a 
thousand cannon and answered the clash of a 
hundred thousand bayonets as they crossed in con- 
flict! These valleys and hills — they have heard 
the notes of the reveille, the assembly, the assem- 
bly, the charge, and after the battle the subdued 
tones of the muffled drum, as the dead were cast 
into the trenches! Those war-like sounds — why 
do none of them again salute my ear? Those 
marching myriads — where are they? Turn now 
on your heel and look off there on that beau- 
tiful knoll east of Marietta. What do you see? 



- 58 - 

Ten thousand white headstones, which adorn the 
national cemetery, and mark the last resting 
place of a part of this mighty host. Turn again 
and you see the resting places of other thousands 
who met them in battle, and there is another part 
of the host. 

Others still remain to go up year by year to 
carry the tattered remains of battle flags (which 
waved proudly here) in processions, which are 
intended to be only reminders of the times that 
were- The years are changing all. things. Not 
long hence there will be somewhere in this broad 
land a "last survivor" of these events, which 
wrought in men's souls the greatest of patriotism 
and valor. 

The declining rays which glisten on the western 
side of Stone Mountain, away yonder, and which 
brighten the points of the steeples and domes in 
Atlanta, clearly seen to the south, remind me that 
I have yet several miles to travel in descending 
the mountain and finding lodgings in Marietta. 
Mechanically I pass my arm through the bridal 
rein and walk on before my horse as one in a 
dream. I am lost between the reality of the 
peaceful present and the almost equal presence of 
the war-like past. Lo! the old camp is yonder; 
why shall I not go thither, tie my horse to his 
place in the line, and sound the tattoo? 

Marietta is the largest and most prosperous town 
since leaving Chattanooga. Judging from appear- 
ances, I should say there might be four or five 



— 59 r- 

tbousand inhabitants. An open court with a park 
in the center, bounded by streets, business and 
public dwellings, is the feature of the town. 
Having been well entertained at the Kennesaw 
House, I was at 7:30 again in the saddle and 
headed toward Atlanta. In passing the Journal 
office I called a moment on its editor and was very 
kindly received. For miles of the way out of 
Marietta the road was literally lined with horse- 
men on their way to attend the county demo- 
cratic convention about to be held in that city. 
The object was to elect delegates to the state con- 
vention for the nomination of governor and other 
state officers. I was forcibly reminded of the 
time when large numbers of these same gentle- 
men were headed in another direction and proceed- 
ing with less deliberation. They had been holding 
quite a protracted convention in Marietta and on 
Kennesaw Mountain, with Gen. Joe Johnston as 
chairman, when Gen. Sherman sent in an urgent 
request for them to adjourn their proceedings to 
some point further south. Their next convention 
of that sort was held in Atlanta, and Gen. Hood 
was chairman. 



^Qotl^ep J)ay \n h^e gadclle. 

NOT A "TWICKENHAM" FERRY — A STRANGE MOUN- 
TAIN TEAM — EASY DOMESTIC TRAITS — WHERE 
TO LOOK FOR EARTHWORKS — OBSERVATORY 
TREE. 

From Marietta I might have chosen any one 
of several routes, but preferred that which led 
through Vining's Station and across Paice's Ferry- 
as being the one over which our command had 
several times marched. The morning was de- 
lightful; the atmosphere was clear as crystal, and 
a fine breeze was stirring, so that my ride was 
anything but tiresome. From the high ridge 
which overlooks Vining's Station I again had a 
fine view of Atlanta and its surroundings, al- 
though still some ten miles distant. On one 
hand could be seen Kennesaw, and on the other 
Stone Mountain, with great distinctness. From 
Vining's on to Atlanta the woods retain, in large 
measure, the footworn appearance which they 
received during the encampments and fighting of 
sixteen years ago. 

Paice's Ferry is like severaL others which cover 
the approaches to Atlanta, as there are no foot 
bridges. It is an open, flat-bottom boat, strung 
to a continuous wire rope which reaches across 



— 61 — 

the river, and is drawn over by a buxom negress, 
who is the regular ferry-woman of the place. It 
has a capacity of two loaded wagons, and is but 
one of the common things here in the South 
which would be ludicrous in the extreme in the 
North. Every day and hour I behold things 
which would excite inordinate laughter if sud- 
denly transferred to the streets of a northern 
town. Here, for instance, comes a team con- 
sisting of a large, bony horse and a very small 
jackass, which seem to work in harmony and to 
enjoy the vociferous driving of the big darkey 
who rides the nigh animal. There is a string of 
wagons coming down the mountain road and 
proceeding to market. They have come sixty 
miles from the isolated mountain regions, and 
they have ten or twelve, perhaps twenty, miles 
yet to go. These teams usually consist of a 
scrawny pair of little mules, whose broad-strapped 
home-made harness nearly covers them up. The 
wagons have high boxes projecting at each end, 
covered with canvas, and are loaded with all sorts 
of "truck" for the market. Usually, with other 
things, there are several cages of chickens, which 
form the staple meat of the South during the 
summer months; besides, there will be melons, 
grapes, eggs, and I know not what. On top of 
all, just beneath the sun-beaten canvas, will sit 
the wife, who, with the baby and four or five 
of the smaller children, is accompanying her 



— 62 — ^ 

husband to market, to see the city, which is a 
journey that they enjoy only once a year. 

On the veranda of that house yonder is one of 
the commonest sights in all the South. It is ten 
o'clock in the morning, and the "heat of the 
day"" has begun. The women folks, two or 
three, have brought their chairs and are seated 
on the shady side, limp and listless, while their 
uncleared tables may be seen through the open 
door. There they will probably sit, chewing 
their snuff swabs, for several hours. If you rein 
in your horse and ask how far it is to the next 
place, within a mile or two of where they were 
born, and so near to which they have lived all 
their lives, they will answer with hesitation and 
evident uncertainty: "Wall, I reckin hits nigh 
about two miles or sich a matter." But I shall 
fail entirely to convey, to one who has never seen 
and heard for himself, the utter languidness with 
which the answer is given. It is impossible to 
print a drawl, or to put the southern twang in 
writing. 

I had frequently heard at the North, from 
those who had passed through the South since 
the war, that nearly all the old marks of the war 
had been obliterated; that the forts had been 
leveled, etc. But I did not believe it, and now 
I know it is not true. I can readily see how one 
riding hastily through on the cars should derive 
such an opinion, when he saw the railroads and 
many of the burnt towns restored. But let him 



— 63' — 

get back, but a few rods often, from the railroad, 
and he will find the old marks in abundance. 
The fact is, the old rifie pits and forts are, for the 
most part, still standing, and, in the nature of 
the case, they will be for a half-century to come. 
Many of them are in places that are undesirable 
for farms — in mountains and deep forests — where 
they will be undisturbed. The old soldier of 
Sherman's army may visit this region any time 
during the present generation with the assurance 
that, if he takes pains to go back from the 
railroad, he will see plenty of the old, familiar 
objects — the trenches which he defended or upon 
which he charged at the risk of his life, when so 
many of his comrades lost theirs. The trees, 
which in most places have grown thickly upon 
the works, have sent their roots in all directions 
and will assist in holding them together against 
the disintegration of the elements. These re- 
marks will apply freely to most of the old 
trenches in the vicinity of the Chattahoochee and 
Atlanta, In some cultivated fields they have 
been obliterated, but in the woods three-fourths 
of them are still intact. 

About 12 o'clock I reached our old camp at 
Buck Head, four miles south of Paice's Ferry 
and five miles from Atlanta. I recognized the 
spot instantly, although it is so thickly grown 
to scrub oaks that 1 could with difficulty get 
through; yet the general features of the large 
oak trees are still the same, and yonder by the 



— 64 — 

roadside is that venerable and never-to-be- 
forgotten tree, up whose side were nailed steps 
and in whose top we built an observatory, from 
which to look into the city during our two weeks' 
stay in this camp. There on its sides are the 
scars of those steps still, and the open shape of 
the top still conforms to the platform which we 
built after clearing away the central branches. I 
pushed my way through the thick undergrowth, 
reached the spot where my tent was once pitched, 
and gave myself up to the reflective memories 
which flooded my soul. Opening my old diary to 
entries which were made on that spot, I read: 
(13th Aug., 1864,) ".This morning sharp cannon- 
ading an hour or two; 1 ' (14th.) "This morning 
our division ordered out to Decatur, where we 
formed our line of battle and had a slight 
skirmish; at 10 o'clock returned to our camp; 1 ' 
(16th,) "Considerable fighting to our front this 
morning with heavy cannonading." During 
these days we were enjoying a little respite, 
having been continually, for a hundred days, in 
the saddle, engaged in raiding and tearing up 
railroad. From this camp we started on our raid 
around Atlanta with Kilpatrick, during which we 
had the severe sabre charge at Lovejoy Station, 
cutting our way out of the enemy, who had there 
surrounded us. 

Reaching Atlanta, I soon found friends and 
quarters at the university (A. M. A.), where 
Professors Ware and Francis are passing their 



— 65 — 

vacations. The students are all away teaching 
during the summer months, and so the influence 
of the university is instantaneously multiplied. 
Much sooner than the teachers desire, their pupils 
are snatcned up to become teachers themselves. 
As soon as they can read and write they are 
deemed qualified by those who employ them. 

The university buildings are located on the 
western border of the city, on a beautiful rise 
of ground, and within sight of several of the old 
forts. Across the ravine yonder are the quarters 
of a regiment of United States artillery, which is 
permanently located at this point, and whose 
guard mounting I have just witnessed. It is 
wonderfully natural to be awakened of a morning 
by the familiar notes of the reveille, and every 
bugle-call which I hear so plainly from the 
barracks is to me like a chapter of the history 
which is past. 



the young giant risen from its ashes — mc- 
pherson's monument — a peculiar moun- 
tain — titled americans— the chain gang 
—Georgia's rome. 

The way in which Atlanta has risen from her 
ashes to three times her former size and to 
incomparably greater beauty and enterprise, 
since the war, is calculated to make us think 
that they who murmur at the burning of the city 
have no proper appreciation of their blessings ! 
General Sherman knew what Atlanta needed, and 
he applied the remedy! Here now are nearly 
40,000 inhabitants, stately rows of. brick blocks, 
magnificent factories and hotels, and as fine 
churches as you will find in any city of its size, 
Of the immediate vicinity of Atlanta it is true 
that many of the earthworks have been leveled 
to make room for improvements. But many are 
still here — sufficient to satisfy any ordinary 
sight-seer. 

The new buildings of Atlanta are modern in 
their architecture, and the residences are espec- 
ially tasty and fine. Many buildings are now in 
process of construction. Of course the old 

66 



— 67 — 

"gopher holes" of the door yards, dug for th# 
safety of the residents from our shells, are all 
now leveled. Not a trace of one of them remains 
so far as I could sec. 

A monument has been erected on the .spot 
where McPherson fell on the 22nd of July. It 
consists of a huge siege gun set on end in a solid 
base of granite, bearing an appropriate inscrip- 
tion. It is well that the monument itself is 
beyond the power of hostile spite, for the 
iron railing which surrounds it has suffered 
serious vandalism. An avenue has been cut to 
the monument, which stands a half a mile from 
the main road and about two miles and a half 
east of the city 

Passing on towards Stone Mountain, a hundred 
familiar objects meet the eye. Here is where the 
picket line was stationed on the night of the 21st 
before the dawning of the fated day when Hood's 
men poured over the works of Atlanta and fell 
with such violence upon our left. Here are 
several lines of the earthworks yet. There is 
the notorious Ligget's Hill ; and still further on, 
the identical spot where the old 3rd was camped 
when we were so fortunately ordered off to the 
work of tearing up the railroad at Covington, 
just in time to take us away from the onslaught 
of the 22nd of July. 

While passing over the battle ground near 
Decatur I fell in with an ex-confederate soldier 
who was an attache of ' Cheatam's headquarters. 



He was full of talk and bombast. So I let him 
rattle on with his story under the supposition 
that he was imparting a great deal of in- 
formation to one in need of it. Indeed it was 
information to learn that the Yankees were so 
badly and utterly beaten as he declared. I had 
always retained, what I had supposed to be a 
trustworthy remembrance, that the Johnnies 
went back into their works after that fight and 
that the Yanks held their own. But it seems I 
have labored under a delusion and that the 
confederates were really victorious. I did not 
disturb the complacency of my informant and 
we parted company with mutual good-will. 

Stone Mountain, sixteen miles south-east of 
Atlanta, is a wonder ■ among the many natural 
wonders of scenery in northern G-eorgia. A huge 
boulder of solid granite, it rises sheer out of the 
ground, stern, sombre and solitary, presenting a 
bare and perpendicular face nearly a thousand 
feet high, to the north, On the south and west 
it is more approachable. Washings of white 
granitic sand have filled the crevices, and in 
places covered the hollows to the depth of sev- 
eral inches. In this strangely formed soil have 
grown up small patches of pines, which dot the 
south-western slope in a most beautiful manner. 
But this long process' of nature, in forming soil 
from the slow accumulations ,pf detritus, and then 
growing forests in it, has not yet sufficed to 
modify the astonishment of a first impression 



— 69 — 

thai? here, alone in the plain, is one solid, rouncL 
headed granite stone, large enough to claim 
place among the mountains, which by the 
hundred may be seen in the distance, but which 
seem to have shunned its company. During 
the numerous raids upon which we were sent, 
from our position on the left flank, we completed 
the circuit of this natural monument four times. 
From its top now I look down upon the road, at 
the very base of its perpendicular side, along 
which we marched. I look off into yonder 
valley where Wheeler came clown upon us sud- 
denly, expecting to find an easy prey, but out of 
which he went praying that the legs of his horse 
might be spared to escape from the Yankees! £ 
look over to the south-east, where we burned the 
railroad bridge and tore up the track, and into 
Lithonia, where we twice encanfped. Atlanta 
and Kenne.saw Mountain are distinctly visible to 
the north-west. It is a grand sight, unobscured 
by any tree or shrub, for the top of the mountain 
is as bare as an Egyptian pyramid. 

On my way back to Atlanta the cars were 
loaded with delegates on their way to the state 
democratic convention at Atlanta. The crowd 
was a study. The predominant impression to 
any member of Sherman's army would be : " I've 
met the most of these gentlemen before." In the 
confusion of voices mingled in promiscuous con- 
versation you could hear every now and then: 
" Heow 'd,' Colonel ? " « Glad to see you, Gin'al I " 



<- 70 — 

n 

il Gwine up to the convention, Cyaptain ? " 
There are " Generals " and " Colonels " and " Cap- 
tains" in the South by the score and hundred, 
but I am firmly persuaded, after close observa- 
tion and hundreds of miles of travel, that none 
of the rank and file of the southern army sur- 
vived the unpleasantness of Appomattox! The 
mortality lists among the "privates" must have 
been something frightful to contemplate im- 
mediately after the " wah." 

I had a fine opportunity to see one of the 
" chain-gangs " of convicts, which are contracted 
to mill, foundry and plantation owners at so 
much a head. These contractors become respons- 
ible to the state for their retention, and thence- 
forth have full liberty to drive them as they 
choose. It amounts to a virtual re-enslavement 
of all such negroes as can by any charge, true or 
false, be arrested and convicted. Forborne slight 
offense a long sentence is imposed and henceforth 
the luckless darkey is a member of the chain- 
gang. A few months ago, as I was told by a 
gentleman of undoubted veracity, a poor fellow, 
for over-heating a livery horse, was sentenced to 
ten years in the chain-gang. 

In the gang which I saw there were 30 or 40 
negroes, chained together, on their way to some 
plantation. There was not a white man among 
them. Perhaps all of the white criminals of 
G-eorgia, like all of the private soldiers of the late 
war, are dead ! 



— 71 — - 

The democratic state convention was the 
great event of the year, and (as one might be 
led to think) of all years at Atlanta. Its dele- 
gates wore clouded brows, as though the weight 
of national responsibilities was upon them. 
Their business, was to name some one as demo- 
cratic candidate for governor and to nominate 
other state officers 

The representatives' hall of the State House 
required especial arrangement to accommodate 
the crowds who gathered. From the gallery I 
looked down upon the most compact assemblage 
of " Generals," " Colonels," " Majors " and " Cap- 
tains" of the confederate service which I ever 
saw. No name was presented to the convention 
without it had some one of these talismanic 
titles ; no praise was so potent as that which per- 
tained to the candidate's confederate soldiering; 
and no praise was so vociferously received as that 
which was bestowed by the gentleman who, in 
presenting the name of " Colonel " Hardeman, 
declared that " he had never taken back on the 
stump the principles for which he fought on the 
field." This was doubtless a side thrust at ex- 
Gov. Brown and others of his faction. There 
was little of such cheering as we hear in a 
northern audience. If any allusion or hit 
pleased them, there was a short, sharp yell — the 
regular old " rebel yell," we used to call it, when 
these gentlemen were coming at us over the 
works. But since they have become good and 



loyal citizenl, I suppose it ought to be called the 
••loyal' yell." 

During a portion of my stay in Atlanta I was 
entertained at the delightful home of Col. Alfred 
Buck, clerk of the U. S, District Court. He has 
made his home in the South since the war, and 
has been prominent in the reconstruction affairs 
of Alabama and G-eorgia, having been at one time 
a member of Congress from the former state. We 
passed a pleasant evening looking over a fine set 
. of lithographic charts of the Atlanta campaign 
which Gen. Sherman presented him during a 
visit to Atlanta. I also met Mr. Kimball, for 
whom the Kimball House is named, who is one of 
the proprietors flf the great cotton factory which 
turns out 30,000 yards of muslin- a day, and to 
whom a large share of Atlanta's latter-day pros- 
perity is due. He^ is the republican candidate 
for mayor, with fair chances of election. 

Mr. Markham, owner of the Markham House, 
was one of the few union men who stayed in 
Atlanta during the siege. He was one of the 
committee of twelve men who marched out to 
meet Schoneld and -" deliver up" the city; and 
also one of the committee who waited on Sher- 
man, hoping to secure a reversal of his decision 
to burn Atlanta. He is full of interesting remi- 
niscences. He says that Sherman reasoned with 
them like a gentleman — telling them among 
other things : " Here are my soldier boys. One 
of them is worth more to me than your whole 



— 78 — 

city full^>f rebel sympathizers. I can't feed you 
both ; therefore you must go." 

. Such remarks will explain why the " soldier 
ooys" loved " Uncle Billy" as scarcely any other 
general was loved by his men during the war. 

Leaving Atlanta regretfully, I proceeded to 
Kome, where I had arranged for a meeting with 
a northern man, Col. J. F. Black, owner of the 
^Shelby Iron "Works, Alabama, which lie in the 
track of our devastating Selma campaign. Fail- 
ing to " meet up " with my friend as expected, 
the half-day between trains was spent in looking 
over the place. It is situated at the point where 
the Oostenaula and Etowah rivers unite to form 
the Coosa,, which is navigable to this point. 
Everywhere about are beautiful mountains. In- 
deed the place is built on its "seven hills," in 
close imitation of the ancient city for which it 
was named. It has grown wonderfully since the 
war, and now supports the title of "city" with 
easy dignity. Its water tower stands on a 
commanding eminence, as if set for the defense 
of the place. The new and beautiful buildings 
of Shorter College (Baptist) are also most, 
admirably located on high ground. It is vaca- 
tion time, but the lady-like little daughter of the 
President, E. D. Mallary, declared that " it would 
• afford her pleasure to show me through ; " and 
through we went, from chapel on first floor to 
art gallery and tower above. Yery few colleges 
set out with such complete and excellent outfit a§ 



the munificence of Col. Shorter has given to this 
institution. 

We visited Eome in the fall of 1864, when 
pursuing Hood in his march to Nashville ; and 
one of the forts erected here then is still standing. 
Hither also was sadly borne the body of young 
General Ransom, who died near here. 

Of my trip northward through Stevenson, Mur- 
freesboro, Nashville, and Louisville, it is not my 
intention now to speak in detail. In a word, 
however, any comrade who should visit these 
places would find at all ample reminders of the 
times and the experiences that were. 



Second Series. 

Letters of 1885. 



GineioR&ti F^mirai^eeBe©^ 

SCENES OF TO-DAY AND THOSE OF '61 — EMBARKING 
THE RAW CAVALRY OLD FACES MISTAKEN VEN- 
GEANCE ON MORGAN. 

Of scenes we never grow weary. There are 
places grand by nature, which, once seen, -enchant 
us forever ; and there are others over which the 
emotions which thrill or the affections which 
charm us, have woven their spell, and they also 
are ever new. In Cincinnati these elements to 
me are combined. Tl\e views from the Heights 
are full of beauty. When the Heights are men- 
tioned (such is man's power to write a curse on 
the fair face of God's hill), we think first of the 
great beer gardens, which are notorious through- 
out the land. But they cannot destroy the glory 
of the scene. 

It was a bright morning when at 7 o'clock we 

rolled into the city. We visited the points of 

interest, the great music hall and exposition 

building, the zoological gardens and two of the 

beer gardens, for the 'latter are not left to one's 
75 



— 76 - 

choice. You are compelled to -pass through their 
grounds to reach the inclined railway. They are 
the first objects yommeet at the summit of every 
incline. Each of them is a mammoth affair, with 
its great porches and open floors, having in all 
chairs and beer tables for 1.200 to 1.500, perhaps 
2,000 beer guzzlers. We saw the court house, 
whose stone walls are nearly restored. The line 
of junction with the smoke-colored portion of the 
old Avail is very distinct. Only a part of one side 
was left standing. Here is a lesson that whoso 
runs may read. That court house had become a 
standing iron}' and sneer at justice ; it was the 
place where the guilty were again and again 
turned loose upon a long-suffering public, and the 
people, after a long time, aroused at length and 
turned their wrath upon it. There are smaller 
cities whose smaller court rooms might study -this 
lesson with profit. There is a sense of justice 
among the people which will ultimately pour its 
fires^ujfon any court or any judge who is found 
to be in league with crime and criminals, and 
who prostitutes his trust by rulings which are a 
mockery at justice. 

There is one spot in Cincinnati which is to me 
of greater interest than all others. It is the 
"steep hill-side .of the river-front where the 
steamers receive and discharge their cargoes. 
Just now (Aug. 5, 1885), the water is at a very 
low stage and the great suspension bridge hangs 
in air 70 or 80 feet above, your head as you stand 



— 77 — 

-e 

at the water's edge. Consequently the whole hill 
at the river front lies exposed. At high tide it is 
covered, and the water reaches above the second- 
story windows at the top. But as I stood there I 
thought little Of these things ; memory was busy 
with other days ; I recalled a bleak December 
afternoon of 1862, when our regiment, having 
marched in from Camp Dennison, stood in line 
along this hillside, as the companies were loaded, 
one after another, upon a fleet of steamers which 
was in waiting beneath us. Our horses were 
unused to such scenes, and the work of trans- 
ferring them across the long gang-planks to the 
steamers was slow. Now and then a stubborn 
animal pulled away and rolled off the plank into 
the river. It was after dark when our turn came. 
During a larger part of the afternoon we had 
waited in line. The wind howled ; the river, 
somewhat swollen, was muddy and angry; the 
black smoke poured out of the many pipes which 
lined the river front, was caught by the wind and 
whirled off and up to join the dark clouds which 
scurried by in platoons. Altogether the scene 
was not inspiring to the zeal of a young soldier. 
Towards evening many of the men who, contrary 
to orders, had .found their way to the adjacent 
saloons, became musical and boisterous. They 
were in poor condition to walk a plank in the 
dark, over the surging water, to say nothing 
about leading their horses. One of them stumbled 
off and, clinging to ,the^ bridle rein, his horse 



^— 78 — 

followed him. They sank immediately beneath 
the stream, and the work of loading went on al- 
most without interruption, for it was seen at once 
that th_e case was hopeless. About nine o'clock 
our regiment of 1,200 men and horses was all 
embarked, and the whole fleet, with much blow- 
ing of whistles and ringing of bells, swung into 
the stream and was off for Louisville. The scene 
was impressive. The darkness had deepened into 
inky blackness. The wind had increased to 
almost a gale. The steamers poured forth clouds 
of lurid smoke and sparks ; while the city lying 
in darkness was revealed only by the flicker o± its 
street lamps and the glare of its furnaces along 
the river front. But our men, worn out with the 
march of the forenoon and the weary waiting 
which followed, were soon rolled into their 
blankets, and stretched at full length upon the 
decks and cabin floors. When we awoke we were 
in sight of Louisville 

How well I remember man}^ of the men who 
stood in line along the river front Sn. that cold 
December afternoon. Not far from me, to the 

right, was young J C , who came into the 

company fresh from college, barely old enough 
to pass muster, his face and form delicate as a 
woman's. He brought with him to our recruit- 
ing officer a letter from his mother, a thoroughly 
cultured lady, who later visited our camp. I wish 
I could give you that letter. She spoke of her 
love for her boy, her only child; told how she 



— 79 — 

had looked forward to the time when he should 
be the support and solace of her old age; told 
how tenderly she loved him ; but declared that 
she willingly gave him, her most priceless treas- 
ure, to the service of her imperiled country. 
Near Lexington, almost under the shadow of 
Henry Clay's mansion, that boy was killed with 
his face towards the enemy, less than a year from 
that time. His comrades boxed up his cold form 
and sent it back to that mother. The sacrifice 
was at last complete. We never heard from her 
again. Heartbroken, she bore her grief in silence. 
One of the unwritten chapters of the rebellion 
was locked up in that heart. We read in history 
of what happened at the front — the booming of 
guns and the blowing of bugles ; but the heart- 
aches, the groans, the hours of weeping in secret 
places — concerning these history is silent. 

Yonder to the left, on that line on the river 

front, was Captain W , a grand man, brave 

and generous ; killed at Chickamauga. Further 
to the left was Lieutenant (afterwards Captain) 

A ; went through the war almost to the time 

of mustering out ; was killed by a drunken 
soldier at Macon in the summer of. '65. So I 
could go up and down that line, looking into the 
faces of men who stood there with us twenty- 
four years ago next December, who long since 
heard the last tattoo, but to whom the realities of 
war were then in the future. None of us then 
knew who would live to tell the story. In 



— 80 — 

Company D there were four brothers by the 

name of G . They were ' steady, faithful 

soldiers, who came fresh from their father's farm. 
They won the respect of all and being the only 
case of four, brothers in the regiment they were 
in a manner noted. They never failed in duty ; 
were always on hand for drill or march or battle, 
but served altogether in the ranks, none of them 
ever being promoted to anything higher than 
sergeant. Their exploits of various kinds would 
fill a volume. At the time when John Morgan 
was creating such a sensation by his guerilla sort 
of warfare, the youngest of these brothers, one 
day, surrounded by his comrades, took off his hat, 
held up his hand and, to the astonishment of 
all, swore by Almighty God that he wauld kill 
Morgan if he ever met him. A few months later 
occurred the affair at Lexington, already referred 
to. • A battalion of our regiment, after a sharp 
fight, surrendered to John Morgan, who had in 
line ten times their number. After our boys had 
laid down their arms, General Morgan's brother, 
Major Morgan, wantonly fired at and wounded 
one of our officers, who was the writer's father, 
whereupon one of his superiors called out, 
" Morgan, Morgan, don't shoot a defenseless 

man! " Young G , hearing this officer called 

"Morgan" and supposing that General Morgan 
was before him, remembering his oath, delib- 
erately "picked up his carbine from the ground 
and killed this Major Morgan, Of course it cost 



— 81 — 

him his life. He was instantly called out and 
riddled with bullets. But he died happy, think- 
ing that he had disposed of a man whose name 
was a terror to the people of Indiana and Ohio. 

Another of these brothers, having served out 
his three years to a day, remarked in the morn- 
ing that he would soon be mustered out and go 
home. But we were then in a raid and his 
discharge could not be issued until we should 
reach camp. In the afternoon occurred the sabre 
charge of Lovejoy Station, and his head was shot 
off by a shell from the enemy's battery. An- 
other, in the same charge, dismounted to help his 
wounded officer. "While doing that deed of kind- 
ness the confederates came upon him and both 
were hurried away to prison. He was permitted 
to act as hospital attendant to his friend j ten- 
derly cared for him j brought him to life from 
the brink o£ the grave ; and when both were 
on their way home, after the war was over, 
the Mississippi river boat on which they were, 
blew up, and both were killed. 

Such are some of the many fortunes of war 
which live again in my memory when I stand at 
the river front in Cincinnati, where these men 
stood with me in line nearly twenty-four years 
ago. For them, at last 

The neighing troop, the flashing blade, 

The bugle's stirring blast, 
The charge, the dreadful cannonade, 

The din and shout, are passed, 



— 82 — 

On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread; 

And Glory guards, with solemn round, 
The bivouac of the dead. 



PENNED IN BY THE MOUNTAINS — THE SCABS OF 
WAB — A WOMAN'S BEMINISCENCES OF A ' POW'FUL 



Probably there is no other spot on this conti- 
nent which is the center of so many historic fields 
as Chattanooga. There are elevated points within 
the city limits, like Fort WGod, which is still 
standing, from which you may have in full 
view three famous and immortal battle grounds. 
Yonder is Lookout Mountain, the memorable 
scene of Hooker's " battle above the clouds;" just 
east of it is the valley where the Chattanooga 
battle was fought; and further to the east, in 
fine view, is Missionary Ridge, where the army of 
the Cumberland retrieved the fame which it lost 
at Chickamauga. From the mountain top the 
field of Chickamauga is also in full view, but, 
lying east of Missionary Ridge, is not visible 
from the city. 

Yesterday (August 6, 1885) we visited the 
battlefield of Chickamauga. The morning was 
delightful, a little warm, but not as uncomfort- 
able as many recent days in Kalamazoo. The 



— 84 — 

drive out of the city lies along the base of Mis- 
sionary Ridge, and all the way to Rossville we 
had in full view the ground up which the famous 
charge of Sheridan's and Wood's divisions was 
made. The valley between Lookout and the 
Ridge is between two and three miles wide, and 
every foot of it is historic ground. Yonder on 
the mountain side were Hooker's men; there in 
full view is the spot where they burst from the 
clouds and with a shout drove the confederates 
from the crest. Down here in the valley to the 
right is the road where Osterhaus pressed forward, 
capturing the pass at Rossville, and where Wood 
and Williamson, supporting him, charged the 
heights on either side of the road. And here, 
at this ltttle hamlet of Rossville (two or three 
houses and a blacksmith shop, at the pass) is the 
spot where Rosecrans stood in consultation with 
his chief-of -staff Garfield, debating whether he 
himself should ride back and try to rally his 
broken army or go into Chattanooga and prepare 
for the reception of the fragments as they should 
make their way in. All the world knows the 
story. He determined on the latter course. Send- 
ing General Garfield to find General Thomas 
and place him in command on the field, General 
Rosecrans rode into Chattanooga, utterly dejected. 
It is one of the most remarkable passages of his- 
tory, and perhaps the only case on record where 
the commander of a vast army deliberately turned 
away and left it still engaged in a life and death 



— 85 — 

grapple with the enemy. Garfield found Thomas 
standing like a rock, holding his men up against 
the enemy, who time and again broke upon him 
in awful surges on that fearful 20th of September, 
1863. 

The Gfap at Rossville is a narrow opening 
through Missionary Ridge, which rises on either 
side of the roadway in a steep, wooded slope. 
The passage through is from a mile to a mile and 
a half in length. Emerging, we took the road 
along which General Garfield sped on that mem- 
orable errand, not knowing at what moment 
he might find it swarming with masses of the 
enemy, who were pressing farther and farther to 
the left and the rear of our army, having utterly 
broken our left flank. The general direction of 
the battlefield is south-east from Chattanooga, so 
that our course east of the Ridge lay along nearly 
parallel with it, as before passing the Gap it had 
done on the west side. Every rod of the way is 
now replete with interest. Over yonder to our 
left and parallel as we ride southward is Chicka- 
mauga Creek, along the west side of which the 
lines of battle were first drawn. There is where 
Brannan and Baird held our left, and here are 
the marks on the trees which still attest to every 
passer-by how thick was the leaden hail which 
compelled them to yield. We rode leisurely along 
the red-clay road which now as formerly winds in 
and out among the oalf and pine trees; now up 
on some favoring hill, which affords a full view 



— 86 .— 

of open fields, over which contending thousands 
with shout and yell rushed in charge and counter- 
charge; and now in some valley, thickly wooded, 
where the poor boys, who stood in their places 
able to see only a few rods, must often have 
wondered whether those on left arid right were 
supporting them or leaving them to their fate. 
We made no haste. The ground is sacred. Now 
and then we met the laden wagons of Georgia 
farmers on their way to the Chattanooga market, 
tricked out in ail that irregularity of harness and 
animals which strikes a northerner as extremely 
grotesque. A very big horse is frequently hitched 
with a very small mule. Sometimes the broad- 
strap harness almost covers the animal up, and 
sometimes the harness is onry a strange tangle of 
strings, ropes and straps, while the wagon wheels, 
dished partly one way and partly the other, 
wobble and groan along as if protesting that 
their years of service are dnoe and their rest 
should begin. 

About ten o'clock we drew near the point 
occupied by Reynolds, Palmer and Negley, which 
early in the fight was the center of our line. 
Finding that we were opposite a farm-house, we 
tied our horse and went in. The house Avas a 
little larger than is common in the vicinity, but 
of the usual pattern, built of logs, having an 
opening through the middle where the family sit 
in the heat of the day, where there is always a 
grateful shade and usually a pleasant breeze. 



— 87 - 

The lady of the house, the husband being absent, 
made us welcome, set chairs for us in that part of 
the house described, and sent one of her numer- 
ous children to bring us water " fraish from the 
bucket" which hung invitingly just in the curb. 
She lived right here during the battle. We asked 
her some questions about her experiences, which 
elicited the remark, " I reckin you alls is frum 
the noath frum the int'rest you alls takes in the 
wan." We so assured her. " We'uns had a 
pow'ful heap o' trouble in them air times. 
We'uns at first thought the battle was all gwine 
ter be down yen by the creek, tew mile away, but, 
law! them guns got louder and louder an 1 d'rectly 
the shails 'gin to drap right hyar in our do' yard, 
an' the yard an' all the fields war full of soldiers. 
Then we 'lowed hit war time fur us to git out o' 
hyar, an' we went tew a house a couple of miles 
furder up yen agin the Ridge. I reckin thar war 
nigh onto sixty of us wimmin thar at that thai- 
house. Law ! they fought plumb up past our 
house hyar, through our yard and plumb up old 
Mr. Snodgrass's house, a mile furder up. Thar's 
whar Gin'ral Thomas tuk his stan', and the 
southern army tried mighty hard, an' they fit 
on that third day till past dark, but they couldn't 
git no furder. Thar's whfer they had the hardest 
fighting all around old man Snodgrass's place. 
He kin tell you all about it, fur he stayed thar 
threw all the fight." . 
We lingered a half-hour or more, eliciting from 



— 88 — 

Mrs. Kelley her interesting account of the battle. 
There are few women in the country who have 
passed through such experiences. Late in the day 
their house caught fire from a shell and burned to 
the ground, and the awful stench which pervaded 
the whole field for some time after the battle 
kept them away from home. But it required no 
testimony from living lips to assure us that her 
home stood in the line of severest fighting, where, 
after both flanks had been turned, our center, 
yielding inch by inch and fighting every rod of 
the way with awful carnage, was pressed back to 
Horseshoe Ridge, where the " Rock of Chicka- 
mauga" refused to yield another foot; for, as we 
turned again into the road and made our way 
over to the creek, we found almost every large 
tree, for more than two miles, bullet-marked, as 
though years back it had passed through a siege 
of the small-pox. But the scars, even on the 
trees, are fading out with the passing years. 
Those on the pines show most distinctly, being- 
marked with knots of resin, which has oozed out 
of every bullet-hole. Those on the oaks are dis- 
tinguished now only by a little slit and a patch 
of bark smoother than the rest. The creek, 
narrow, deep, muddy and steep-banked, moves 
sluggishly towards its junction with the Ten- 
nessee — an emblem of anything but war, seeming 
too insignificant to have given name to one of the 
greatest battles of history. 



Old (gattlefieU^ F^vi^ited. 

WHERE THOMAS HURLED THEM BACK — THE SETTLER 
WHO STAYED IT OUT — LONGSTREET's VISIT — A 
SCENE OF PEACE — THE FORTIFICATIONS NOW — 

MOURNING FOR GRANT. 

i 

* Returning from Alexander's Bridge, which 
crosses the Chickamauga near the center of the 
first line of battle, we retraced our steps for two 
miles. The valley of the creek for the space of 
half a mile on either side is just now covered with 
a heavy growth of corn. Back of the cornfields 
are the woods, which stand much as they did 
twenty-two years ago, penetrated by the same 
roads, whose zigzag courses follow, as is usual in 
this region, " the lines of least resistance." We 
turned into and followed one of these cross-roads 
for some distance, finding everywhere the same 
evidences of the severity of the fight. Broken 
and jagged tree tops, with now and then a great 
scar, which marks the spot where half the thick- 
ness of the tree was shot away, show where 
cannon ball and shell plowed their way over the 
heads of some, to do execution further on. The 



Written from "Rock City," Lookout Mountain, Aug. 13, 1885. 



— 90 — 

larger trees are nearly all blotched with bullet 
marks. In several Mrs. Brown counted as many 
as eighteen scars. When we recall that the line 
of battle as at first formed was seven or eight 
miles long, and that throughout this distance the 
trees still bear these scars, though in places in 
smaller numbers, we may judge of the death- 
storm in which over 50,000 of our boys stood 
during those September days of 1863. 

The line of battle, conforming in general 
direction to the course of Chickamauga Creek, 
extended north and south, facing east. After 
varying fortunes of the first two days, both wings 
of our army were broken and crowded back, the 
center yielding also, but more slowly, until the 
shape of our lines rudely resembled a horseshoe. 
At this time the centre, under Thomas, was fully 
two miles west of the creek, posted on a spur of 
Missionary Ridge called u the horseshoe, ,, while 
the wings were bent around it to right and left. 
Here occurred the most fearful fighting of the 
battle. The victorious and exultant confederates 
in dense masses were pressing our lines in front 
and rushing upon our exposed flanks, so far to 
right and left as almost to have surrounded the 
entire army. But here also the grand old hero, 
who had saved the army at Stone's River, had 
determined to yield no further. When that 
decision was made there was but one thing for 
the confederates to do. They fought with des- 
peration—fought till long after dark; forced 



— 91 — 

their men again and again up to the cannon's 
mouth and upon the cold steel of Thomas's bay- 
onets, but they went back, like the broken surges 
of the sea when they have smitten a rock and 
turned to foam. 

During this fighting of the third day, Thomas 
made his headquarters near the summit of the 
ridge, beneath an oak tree in the dooryard of a 
mountain farmer, a Mr. Snodgrass, who still lives 
where he did then. To his house, by a narrow 
and winding road through the thick timber, we 
made our way. The ground rises gradually for 
more than half a mile and is heavily timbered 
until within 80 or 100 rods of the house, where 
we emerged upon Mr. Snodgrass's farm. 

We found the old man, patriarehial in appear- 
ance, sitting in his yard beneath the tree once 
honored as Thomas's headquarters in battle. He 
made us welcome, ordered chairs for us by his 
side, and entered freely into an account of that 
great day in his life, when his humble log house 
was the center of two almost encircling armies, 
engaged in mortal combat. He remained at his 
home during the entire battle. In the early 
stages of it, he did not think flight necessary, and 
when he would have gone, retreat was nearly cut 
off, and he was liable to have run into the heat of 
an engagement in any direction. Moreover Gen- 
eral Thomas's hospital tents were pitched not far 
from the house, and jbhe General told him that 
he would be safer near their flag than anywhere 



— 92 — 

else. The wounded and dying were brought into 
the open yard aud fields around his house, until 
they numbered nearly 2,000 and the ground 
was red with blood. From the elevation where 
General Thomas stood nearly all of the final 
movements of the battle could be overlooked and 
directed. Yonder to the left, through that corn- 
field, is where General Gordon Granger, hastening 
over from Rossville with three brigades, came to 
the rescue just in time to hurl his men against 
Hindman's and Kershaw's divisions of Long- 
street's command, which had formed and were 
about to charge our right and rear. Here is 
where the gallant Steedman, seizing the colors of 
a regiment, led the charge in person. This was 
the critical moment and turning-point of the 
battle. The charge was short and decisive, but 
the slaughter was fearful. Up yonder, just over 
the crest of that hill to our right, as we face 
the east, is where it happened; aud that is where 
the dead men lay so thick that for a long distance 
you could have stepped from one to the other. 
It was a fearful price, but our army was saved. 
Longstreet tried again to charge our men from 
the ridge, but the hour had passed and the tide 
had turned. Here just before us, about 80 rods 
down the hill, is where the confederates burst 
from the woods again and again, only to be hurled 
back. Many of the rebel dead still lie where 
they were buried on the field. Our boys who 



— 93 — 

gave their lives for their country are gathered into 
the National cemetery at Chattanooga. 

Among the many who have visited this spot, 
Mr. Snodgrass told us of three who not long ago 
rode up to his gate and inquired: 

44 Is this where Mr. Snodgrass lives? " 

14 I told em* it was." 

14 Is Mr. Snodgrass at home? " 

44 1 told them Mr. Snodgrass was hyar before 
'em." 

44 Would Mr. Snodgrass come to the gate? " 

44 1 says to 'em, 4 Ef you alls have more to do 
with me than I have to do with you alls, you alls 
may come to where I am.' " 

44 * But,' says one of the horsemen, 4 this is 
General Longstreet.' " 

44 4 Longstreet or Shortstreet,' says I, 4 is all the 
same to me. 'Pears like I'm a older man than ary 
one of you.' " 

So the patriarch, with the long gray hair and 
beard, stood on his dignity, refusing to be flat- 
tered by a visit from General Longstreet. The 
party stayed several hours. Longstreet was par- 
ticular to enquire just where General Thomas 
made his headquarters. The tree was pointed out. 
On one side a great root, gnarled and knotted, has 
been washed bare and stands up a foot from the 
ground, forming, with the body of the tree for a 
back, a natural seat. Upon this Longstreet sat, 
saying as he did so: 

44 It is reasonable to suppose that at some time 



— 94 — * 

during the day General Thomas would sit down 
on this root, and I want to sit where Thomas sat." 

It may be remarked, in passing, that Longstreet 
was moved with the same desire to sit where 
Thomas had been, some twenty-two years ago, 
but at that time he got no nearer than the 
bottom of the hill — there were insurmountable 
obstacles. During the entire conversation Gen- 
eral Longstreet referred only in terms of the 
highest respect to General Thomas. 

One of Mr. Snodgrass's sons-in-law, living with 
him and working his farm, was one of the famous 
" Texas rangers," and carries five wounds, all 
received at Perrysville. He was very cordial and 
talked over the former times "with the utmost 
good humor. Just before we started on our 
.return to the city he called his little boy: 

" You, John, run and fetch the gentleman some 
of them bullets." 

And presently the lad returned laden with 
relics, of which the field still affords an abund- 
ance. He brought blocks chipped from pine 
trees, with bullets in them, rusty bayonets, belt 
buckles, and the like. We took several, handed 
the lad his expected bucksheesh, ate our lunch 
beneath the spreading branches of Thomas's 
oaken headquarters, and returned to the city. 
As we emerged from the pass at Rossville, the 
shadows from Lookout, which loomed grandly in 
the west, nearly crossed the valley; the farmers 
were returning with their empty wagons from the 



— 95 — 

city; the cows, gently lowing and tinkling their 
bells, were leisurely making their way towards 
many barnyards. Over the whole scene there 
hovered the spirit and the benediction of peace. 
It was such a scene as one might picture for some 
gentle realm where love has always been supreme 
and where war has been forever unknown. And 
when we tried to realize that only a few years 
ago this whole Chattanooga valley was filled with 
armed soldiers, that every rock has sent back its 
echo of thundering cannon, that yonder ridge 
was at one evening time all ablaze with the flash 
of hostile musketry and howitzers, we seemed 
to ourselves like those who have dreamed some 
horrid dream and awaked to a brighter reality. 

There are many former soldiers, doubtless, who 
will be glad of a word concerning the present 
condition of the fortifications which they helped 
to pile about Chattanooga and which were once 
of such intense interest to them. We spent a 
clay in visiting the different forts which are still 
standing along the former lines of defense about 
the city. " Cameron Hill " is now accessible 
to the top by a good carriage drive, and from its 
altitude of 500 feet we had a fine view of city, 
valley and river for miles around. The fort on 
the hill is still there, though broken and weed- 
grown. Most of the trenches about the city have 
disappeared. In the cultivated valley not a trace 
of them remains, and those nearer the city have 
given way to the many improvements which 



— 96 — 

have marked the growth of Chattanooga from a 
population of 2,500 to 25,000 people. "Fort 
Wood " is in a good state of preservation, con- 
sidering the time that has elapsed. But the city 
has nearly reached it in growing, and it must 
soon run up the white flag and yield to the vic- 
tories of peace. " Rock Fort " too will soon he 
demolished, constant encroachments being made 
by a neighboring stone quarry. The fort where 
Grant made his headquarters during a part of the 
battle of Chattanooga, almost directly east of the 
city, is also well defined. But it is entirely sur- 
rounded by suburban cottages, and the demand 
for surrender has already sounded along the 
ramparts. 

On the 8th, while hundreds of thousands from 
all parts of the land were assembled in New York 
to bury, with unprecedented honors, the nation's 
hero, we retired to the National cemetery, where 
12,896 men, who in the memorable battles of this 
vicinity laid clown their lives, now sleep in peace. 
The cemetery lies east of the city on a gentle hill 
between Lookout on the one hand and Missionary 
Ridge on the other. The hill, though sloping 
gently on all sides, would be a lofty one in Mich- 
igan, and commands at its top a fine view of the 
valley southward and of the ridge eastward, where 
the fighting occurred. The flagstaff and siege 
guns which crown the summit mark the spot 
where General Grant and staff stood during the 
charge of Missionary Ridge. The spirit of the 



— 97 — 

great man seemed not far away as we looked upon 
these fields of one of his most brilliant achieve- 
ments. Nor could we forbear the reflection that 
here was a most fitting symbol of the close of the 
great captain's career, for all these scenes of war 
outside of the city now lie hushed and silent; 
flowers are growing in beauty where once the 
blood of the slain stained the ground; and yonder, 
where once it tried the souls of brave men to go, 
a little child is playing with her lamb. 

The cemetery itself is a most beautiful spot. 
You enter it through a massive stone arch, which 
is closed by ponderous iron gates. A stone 
wall five feet high and three feet thick entirely 
surrounds the grounds. Once within, all is beau- 
tiful with every device of the gardener's skill. 
Not a hand-breadth of the ground is neglected. 
The whole is one vast luxuriant lawn, close- 
cropped. The walks and drives are excellently 
graveled and drained. Long rows of shade trees 
line them on either side and of pleasing variety. 
Nothing is stiff or rectangular. The drives and 
walks and even the headstones are disposed in 
curves adapted to the knolls and depressions of 
the grounds. Outcroppings of natural rock here 
and there have been left; but around them have 
been planted shade trees, cypress or willow, with 
oak and maple, and over them are trailing, in all 
the profusion of nature, vines of English ivy, 
with interspaces of mottled gray and deep-green 
moss. Here and there 'are iron tablets with black 



— 98 — 

background and raised white letters, by which you 
are invited to reflect that — 

No vision of the morrow's strife 

The warrior's dream alarms; 
No braying horn nor screaming fife 

At dawn shall call to arms. 

No rumor of the foe's advance 

Now sweeps upon the wind; 
No troubled thought at midnight haunts, 

Of loved ones left behind. 

Rest on, embalmed, heroic dead, 

Dear as the blood ye gave ! 
No impious footstep here shall tread 

The herbage of your grave.- 

Some time ago, in company with my friend, 
President Morrison, I visited the National ceme- 
tery at Springfield, Missouri. " I never can come 
to this place," said the good man, " without weep- 
ing." His eyes were ready for the handkerchief 
as he spoke. If the time shall ever come when I 
<jan visit such a place as this National cemetery 
*' without weeping," then " may my right hand 
forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth." By the strange fortunes of 
war, thousands of worthier men than I lie here; 
while 1 am spared to come, after a score of years, 
and — 

Walk on the dust that lies o'er their brow. 

They were my brothers. In common vigils 
and marches and ofttimes in common hunger, in 
common dangers and sufferings, I learned to love 



— 99 — 

them, and count it my honor that I may salute 
their silent dust with the memories and the affec- 
tions of a comrade. To all who read these lines I 
this day point out their graves, saying, " Behold 
the unspeakable price of your liberties! 11 

Business places and residences were heavily 
draped, and memorial services were held in one of 
the largest churches. 



On £°o^°ut tf2°unl&\n. 

SCENES OP THE BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS — A 

VISION OP FIVE STATES NATURE PHOTOGRAPHS A 

CITY IN ROCKS LOOKING DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 

FIVE YEARS' CHANGES. 

*Many have doubtless been accustomed to think 
of Lookout mountain as a solitary peak in Ten- 
nessee overlooking the city of Chattanooga. In all 
of the engravings and chromos it is so represented 
and in nearly all references to it the same mistake 
is made ; which probably arises from the fact that 
the battle was fought near the point at the north 
end of the mountain. The fact is that Lookout is 
a range extending many miles in a northeasterly 
and southwesterly direction across the northwestern 
corner of Georgia, into Tennessee, which is termi- 
nated abruptly by the Tennessee river at its north- 
ern end near the city of Chattanooga. The precipit- 
ous and rocky north end of this range in Ten- 
nessee is the portion made famous by Hooker's 
exploit. It is this portion which is usually thought 
of as Lookout mountain. Visitors from the north 
frequently, if not usually, content themselves with 



♦Written from "Rock City*" -Lookout Mountain, Qa>. Aug. 
17,1885, . 

100 



— 101 — 

a visit to the point which overlooks the city and 
many windings of the river, and go away thinking 
that they have seen all that is worth seeing on the. 
mountain. The view from the point is indeed a 
grand one. From here portions of five different 
states, it is said, are distinctly visible. Some say 
seven but that is not true. A glance at the map 
will show any one how it is possible, from this 
elevation of two thousand feet, to, see points in four 
different states, viz.: Tennessee, G-eorgia, North 
Carolina and Alabama. In addition a lofty peak is 
shown, which, it is affirmed, is near to Cumberland 
gap, in Kentucky. If this be true, which I doubt, 
then we look across the entire breadth of Tennessee, 
for the Georgia line is only two miles south of the 
Point. Bragg' s fortifications, on the mountain, 
were near the Point, and were still in good state of 
preservation when I was here five years ago. But 
in the meanwhile they have nearly all been 
leveled. 

They who, being on the mountain, satisfy them- 
selves by a visit to a single locality make a great 
mistake. There are different places along the 
entire range which reward the tourist with mag- 
nificent views, each having its own peculiarities, 
and each in a manner unrivalled. One feature is 
common throughout the length of the range; a 
rocky and precipitous bluff, varying in height 
from 50 to 300 feet, continuously marks the summit. 
It is this feature, perhaps more than any other, 
which renders the view from Lookout so peculiarly 



— 102 — 

grand. At any point on the mountain, the sight- 
seer can easily reach the verge of this bluff and he 
then has a view which is wholly unobscured by 
trees, or any obstacle. In most places the bluff is 
far above the tops of the highest trees which grow 
on the steep mountain-side beneath. Eock City, so 
called, where we have made our stay on the moun- 
tain, is a part of this rocky rampart, situated a mile 
south of the Tennessee line. There is here no city, 
as the name would seem to indicate. The solitary 
mountaneer's cottage at which we are staying is 
situated in the edge of the pine woods, but a few 
rods back from the precipice, which is here 300 feet 
high. In the afternoon the rocky surface of the 
bluff is entirely shaded, and furnishes a delightful 
place to read Miss Murfree's book, "Life in the 
Tennessee Mountains;" for from this lofty perch, 
" Pine Mounting," and several other scenes of her 
stories are in plain view. 

"Eock City" is only a strange and wild effect 
produced by the rocks themselves. It is in fact a 
portion of the bluff, laid bare for the space of an 
acre or two and cleft into deep seams which trav- 
erse each other in all directions, like the streets of 
a city, leaving the rocks in huge squares like the 
business blocks or palaces of some exhumed Pom- 
peii. These strange streets, forty or sixty feet 
beneath the surface, are all accessible and each has 
its name. "Broadway" is of comfortable width 
and in it trees and shrubbery are growing. " Fat 
Man's Misery" is a long, narrow rift, through 



— 103 — 

which you walk, looking up at the little ribbon of 
light 40 feet above your head and wondering how 
long ago some earthquake opened the seam ; won- 
dering too, how long it will be till another convul- 
sion closes it up again. The name of this last 
street indicates the difficulties which certain per- 
sons encounter in traversing it. 

The view from this bluff is magnificent. The 
precipice juts far into the valley and commands a 
wonderful view of it in both directions ; while dif- 
ferent ranges of mountains, fold after fold, lie away 
to the east, till in the dim distance mountain and 
cloud are blended beyond the power of human vis- 
ion to separate them. From our lofty perch we 
look down upon the homes of the farmers in the 
valley, appearing much like those which Gulliver 
found in the land of the Lilliputians. The cows 
look scarcely as large as rabbits, while the teams 
and wagons passing down there seem so small 
that it is difficult to persuade ourlselves that they 
are engaged in the real business of life, bearing its 
burdens and preparing the stock in trade for its 
markets. They look more like the tin toys with 
which children amuse themselves. It is not diffi- 
cult from such a place to realize that there is One 
who from His throne, " On the circle of the Heav- 
ens," regards all men but as children. The appear- 
ance of the different fields is most interesting as 
you look down upon them. The whole landscape, 
with its alternation of crops of different shades of 
green, interspersed with groves of still another 



— 104 — 

shade, looks like a great checker-board with every 
block clearly defined. The view of the city from 
here is remarkable. It is fully four miles distant in 
direct line; seven or eight by wagon road. And 
yet as we, look down upon it, it seems like a "birds- 
eye map " of itself. Every street and every promi- 
nent building may be located. At night when the 
electric lights are aglow the effect is very fine. It 
is as though a constellation had dropped from the 
sky to illumine the valley. 

The weather here is delightful. We have fire on 
the stone hearth of our room almost every night 
and morning. At this hour (10 o'clock A. m.) the 
thermometer marks 70 degrees. The warmest day 
that we experienced down in Chattanooga, was no 
warmer than you had in Kalamazoo, according to 
the published report. 

The daily scenes about us here, among these 
mountaineers, are much like those described by 
Miss Murfree. The mountain has here and there its 
little farm, connected by a rude road which strag- 
gles to right and left through the woods where the 
many gulleys and knolls may be most easily crossed. 
The transition from the busy life of the city, lying 
yonder, to the quiet life of these mountain cottages, 
is complete. There, all is rustle ; here, all is rest. 
The mountaineers never hurry. A little field of corn 
and another of potatoes are growing close by ; the 
mountain has great "patches" of black-berries 
growing wild, as fine as any in the gardens of the 
north: the cows get their own living and deliver 



— 105 — 

their milk without asking for tickets ; rent is noth- 
ing, for the mountaineers are the independent 
owners of their plain homes; the assessor who 
should lay anything but a nominal tax upon this 
mountain soil, would be ashamed ever after to look 
in the glass again ; why should not these people be 
contented and happy? Such indeed they seem to 
be. We preferred a temporary home at one of 
these cottages, located where we have this view, to 
the hotels. Our hostess spreads for us three times 
a day a table whose linen is scrupulously neat, with 
an abundance of clean, well cooked food. In the 
abundance with which she feeds us we were happily 
surprised. But anyone who knows aught of the life 
of these mountaineers would expect the cleanliness. 
Miss Murfree is right in saying that the "rude homes 
of these mountaineers are distinguished by scrupu- 
lous cleanliness, and in this respect are in striking 
contrast to the poor hovels of the lowlanders." 
Fruits, and especially peaches, grow in great abun- 
dance on the mountain. With peaches, blackberries, 
milk in abundance, excellent breadstuff's, fried chick- 
ens and vegetables, we have been fed to our entire 
satisfaction. Our hostess has a natural dairy cellar, 
in one of the deep clefts of "Bock City," which is 
close toher house. There, 40 feet below the surface, 
she gets from a living spring the water which comes 
cool to the table ; and thence also, from a natural 
shelf, over the spring, she brings her pitcher of milk 
and the roll of butter for our meals. Near here is a 
former encampment arid some of the stone chim- 



— 106 — 

neys erected by our soldiers are still standing, as 
also one of the old hospital buildings. 

Yesterday we attended church on the mountain. 
The local preacher, himself one of the mountain 
farmers, called for us with his wagon, which, unus- 
ual to the region, has a pair of springs. His two 
large mules drew us easily up the steep places and 
for the equally steep down grades his wagon is 
provided with a strong brake. We rode more than 
six miles and found the little log church in a 
wooded solitude, so completely secluded that we 
could not see it a few rods away. But the people- 
had already assembled and we could hear them 
singing before we reached the church. Their sad- 
dle animals and teams were tied all about among 
the trees. We found the house full to almost over- 
flowing. There were all ages from the children up, 
a larger proportion than is usual in cities being- 
young people. Most of the people were of the 
lean mountain type, light complexion and light 
colored hair. The singing, led by a very tall man, 
was good, and nearly every person in the room 
joined, men, women and children. They sang 
" Jesus Lover of my Soul," " A Charge to Keep I 
Have," and several pieces from "Gospel Hymns," 
which have been printed in a small book in use on 
the mountain, together with some pieces with 
which we were not familiar. As we arrived the 
Sunday school was dismissed and five minutes inter- 
mission before preaching announced. After the 
five minutes the room was again filled. I had 



— 107 — 

hoped to hear the local preacher but he insisted 
with over-persuasion that the stranger should speak. 
I never addressed a more attentive, or respectful 
audience ; and I found, speaking for the first time 
to Georgia mountaineers, that their hearts are like 
the hearts of other people, responsive to the same 
appeals, bearing the same burdens, thrilled by the 
same joys and cherishing the same hope of a coming 
day, when the people of mountain and valley shall 
meet together beyond the waste of years in a land 
where they shall go no more out. 



Old k\n^ j^kont yNa^Vill®- 

TRACING THE LASTING WORKS AND HASTY TRENCHES — 

INTERESTING REMAINS TRANSFORMATION OP ZOL- 

LICOFPER BARRACKS — GALLANT GEN. CHEATHAM — 
CORDIAL TERMS BETWEEN EX-SOLDIERS OF THE 
TWO ARMIES. 

* Our experiences the past few days have been 
so full of interest that it is difficult to choose a 
"point of departure 1 ' for this letter." Jubilee 
Hall, of Fiske university, where we have been 
most cordially received by friends, stands on the 
spot occupied by Fort Gillem during the siege 
of this city by Hood's army. It is at the north- 
western angle of the city, midway between the 
capitol and the Cumberland river, on what was 
the inner line of Thomas's defences. But, aside 
from the marks of the great battle, Nashville 
and vicinity is a place of much interest to many 
thousand soldiers who at one time or another 
during the war were camped here. What boy-in- 
blue who ever soldiered in this region does not 
remember "old Zollicoffer barracks?" — an im- 
mense brick structure designed for a hotel, which 

Written from Fiske University, Nashville, Aug. 24, 1885. 
108 



— 109 — 

the war caught unfinished, with walls up, roof on 
and floors in, but with no windows and but few 
partitions. It was at once converted into a half- 
way house for regiments en route to camp or field. 
Two separate times, in different years, detach- 
ments of our regiment were marched into it in 
passing through the city. The old Zollicoffer 
is to-day the Maxwell house of Nashville, one 
of the largest and finest hotels of the south, 
As I stepped into its elegant dining-room (the 
very same where we were served with bread and 
pork, except the changes wrought by the painters 
and plasterers), no one said " halt," but a black 
waiter, with white apron, bowed his suavest and 
said, " This way, sah." When he handed me the 
bill of fare, I asked him if he could " bring me a 
slice of cold salt pork;" but he looked at me and 
then at the bill, and I forbore. Cold pork and 
bread in chunks have gone their way from this 
room, together with the sabres which once clanged 
along these corridors and the muskets which used 
to come down with an echoing thump at the 
command, u Order arms!" 1 

My companion at the table to-day was an ex- 
confederate, a genial fellow now, but he would 
have been glad of the chance to shoot me about 
the time I took dinner here over twenty years 
ago. At the hotel also I met General Frank 
Cheatham, who commanded Hood's right during 
the siege, and the confederate left on the last day 
of the battle. I had a most pleasant visit with 



— 110 — 

him. He is a man of medium height, rather full 
habit, white hair and mustache, florid face, only 
slightly wrinkled, which lights up with a genial 
smile at the slightest occasion. He must be 
about 60 years of age. He makes his home in the 
city at present, and has been iu this vicinity since 
the war. He talked freely of his battles and with 
equal freedom of those in which he confessed that 
he was whipped. However, be it here confessed 
that it was no small job to whip him; and there 
were plenty of confederate generals, rather than 
General Cheatham, whom we preferred to have in 
oar vicinity during the " unpleasantness." He 
told me of his meeting General Sherman at 
Chattanooga a few years ago, and how they talked 
over their campaigns together; spoke of riding 
out recently to the Widow Compton hill, south- 
west of the city, where his corps was located on 
the confederate left when — to use his own words — 
he " was so badly routed." He told me he wanted 
to climb the hill, but that walking has been 
rather more difficult recently than in former 
years, and that he had been obliged to content 
himself with looking up to the woods which 
crown the summit. The hill would be called 
almost a mountain in Michigan, and is perhaps 
400 or 500 feet high. When I told him that I 
had during the past week climbed the hill and 
made my way through the thick undergrowth 
along his entire line of earthworks, he grasped 
my hand warmly and appeared as much delighted 



— Ill — 

as if he had met an old-time friend. During 
the conversation a gentleman passed and with a 
salute said, " Howdy, general? " " That gentle- 
man," said General Cheatham, " is Mr. O'Brien, 
one of the finest men in this city. He was one of 
my quartermasters during the war." After much 
more that was to me most interesting, the general 
invited me cordially to visit him at his home, 
saying with a smile as he closed, " I have met 
many men from the north; I always like to meet 
you; I want you all to know how thoroughly 
I am re-constructed." He presided at the Grant 
memorial exercises held in this city a few days 
ago, and in speaking of the dead hero was moved 
to tears. 

Almost every prominent line of the fight, in 
the great battleground about Nashville, can still 
be traced by one who knows where to look; while 
there are places like the left of Overton's hill and 
Widow Compton's hill, where almost every rod of 
the trenches remain, and where the bullet-marks 
are as thick on the trees as at Chickamauga. 
These two points of the battle-field every visitor 
should see. The first lies about four miles south 
on the Franklin pike, and the second is about an 
equal distance southwest on the Granny White 
pike. These are the places where the fighting was 
severest, and where the dead lay thickest. 

It will be recalled that on the morning of 
Dec. 15, 1864, under cover of a thick fog, General 
Thomas's forces, under General A. J. Smith, 



— 112 — 

including Garrard's, McArthur's, and Moore's 
divisions of infantry, together with. Wilson's 
cavalry command, moved out from our right and 
struck the enemy in flank, driving him from the 
outset and compelling him to re-form on his 
center. The fighting during that whole day was 
severe, and the enemy struggled with despera- 
tion, but failed to gather up and was continually 
driven. During the night Hood abandoned his 
defences, and withdrew to a position two miles 
south of his first line, and his troops worked 
all night throwing up earthworks to receive 
the assault which he knew would come with the 
morning. The earthworks extended the whole 
distance between and including the two points 
named, a little overlapping the Granny White 
pike on the west and the Franklin pike on the 
east. But it was no sort of use. u The Rock 
of Chickamauga" was in a violent state of earth- 
quake and eruption, and everything had to "stand 
from under." Thomas was slow in getting ready; 
but when he was ready, he was ready. 

Driving out first on the Franklin pike, we 
turned aside to visit Fort Morton, whose rocky 
sides and rod-earth summit have a decidedly war- 
like appearance still. It stands on one of the 
highest hills in the southern suburb of Nashville, 
and commands a magnificent view of the cit}*- on 
the one hand and a wide sweep of the country 
on the other. We walked through its broken 
entrance, over weeds and grass growing peacefully 



— 113 — 

enough now, and furnishing pasture for a cow or 
two which grazed unmolested over the crumbled 
magazine which once held its thousands of pounds 
of cartridges and powder. From the escarpment 
we could look into Port Negley, which stands 
across the pike and a little beyond, separated by 
about half a mile from Fort Morton. Between 
these forts and onward from the latter in a semi- 
circle, curving southwest and then northwest to 
the Cumberland, ran our line of trenches, behind 
which the boys waited and watched, and from 
which they sallied forth on that 15th day of 
December. These forts are prominent objects 
from any outlook in the city, and long portions of 
our rifle-trenches still remain in the outskirts and 
just beyond the city limits. 

Passing beyond these forts, we saw for two or 
three miles only the beautiful farms and elegant 
homes which line the pike. Beautiful groves of 
large oak and beech trees are characteristic now 
as during the war, and but for the scars they bear, 
their peaceful shadows would seem to dispute the 
stern facts of history, which declare that once the 
demon of war raged in all his fury beneath them. 
The stone walls have been repaired and are all in 
place on either side of the road. Here at our left 
and yonder in the field to our right, some distance 
away, are " spring houses, 11 which are common to 
the region, no farm being complete without one. 
This is the ground over which Steedman's men 
went forth to the first assault on the morning of 



— 114 — 

that eventful day, moving out on our left with so 
strong a demonstration that he succeeded in com- 
pletely withdrawing Hood's attention from our 
right, where the movement in force was being 
made. Twice did his men move grandly to the 
attack upon Cheatham, and though each time 
driven back, they succeeded in the purposes of 
their commander. 

Overton's hill lies bordering the pike on the east 
or left-hand side, as we go towards it from the 
city. The northern slope is long and nowhere 
abrupt, but towards the top somewhat steep. It 
has, here and there, as during the war, a large, 
wide-spreading beech tree, but is otherwise quite 
free from wooded growth, presenting the appear- 
ance of a shaded hillside lawn. It was up this 
exposed slope that Steedman's colored brigade 
twice charged with as furious assault as was made 
.by either side during the battle, leaving their 
slain so thickly scattered over the hillside that, 
according to the testimony of a confederate 
soldier who saw them, and with whom Ave talked 
on the battle-field, you could have stepped from 
one to the other. 

Beech trees retain their scars but poorly, and 
they who content themselves with a look at the 
hill from the main road would be almost justified 
in saying that there are no marks of war in the 
vicinity. There are several tree-tops shattered by 
shot or shell, but the smaller marks, elsewhere so 
plentiful, are few or lacking. Here, however, was 



— 115 - H 

the extreme right of Hood's " last ditch," which 
his bat tie- worn and wearied men worked all night 
to throw up. A growth of weeds just now hides 
that part of it nearest to the pike on the west 
side; but a cross-road, which intersects the pike at 
right angles just here, runs for half a mile along 
in front of it, westward. We drove down 
this road, with increasing wonder that we found 
nothing of these earthworks, which I knew must 
be in the vicinity. But a sudden turn in the 
road displayed a long stretch of trenches, clearly 
marked and well preserved. Weeds and brush 
growing thickly had hidden them so that for half 
a mile we had been within a few rods and going 
parallel with them without seeing them. One or 
two experiences of this kind will show one why 
so many report that they find nothing of interest 
remaining. A negro living near the earthworks 
told us that he had never known anyone before 
to drive out on this cross-road to visit them. 
Many or most people turn back too soon. We 
tieil our horse, climbed the fence and walked 
a long distance along the line where the confed- 
erates under Stewart and S. D. Lee fought with 
desperation till about three o'clock on the after- 
noon of the 16th, when the men could be held 
no longer, but broke in confused masses for the 
Franklin pike, which was the only line of retreat 
left them through the Brentwood hills. Here we 
were on the line whence they fled. Here lay their 
wounded and dead. Yonder through field and 



— 116 — 

grove came our boys of Wood's and Smith's com- 
mands, pouring over stone wall and fences, until 
they occupied these deserted trenches and looked 
upon the flying fragments of Hood's army. Here 
too lay thickly scattered before these trenches 
the men who bought that victory with their life's 
bloo*d. We searched in vain for fragments of 
shot or shell; but the man living near the works 
says they are plenty after a heavy rain or a fresh 
plowing. 

In this field the plowing seems never to have 
touched the trenches themselves, but has been 
confined to a small piece in front of them. In 
the next, the works have been nearly leveled; but 
having found the direction from those which 
remain distinctly, you can trace the others 
through the cultivated fields by a faint ridge 
which runs westward towards the Granny White 
pike. 

On our return ride to the city, pausing about 
four o'clock in the afternoon at a beautiful spring 
by the wayside to refresh ourselves and our 
animal, we ;i met up" with a member of the 
Tenth Tennessee cavalry, who had also stopped 
for a drink. We found a friend at once. He 
told me his war belongings and I told him mine, 
whereupon he declared: " You may be sure I 
think no less of you for that, for I'm mighty free 
to own now that you alls were on the right side 
and I was on the wrong. You know that, of 
course; but I know it too, now." Generals John- 



— 117 — 

ston and Buckner at General Grant's funeral; 
rank and file of the confederacy talking as I have 
quoted — can it be possible that we are 011I3- 20 
year3 removed from those terrible days of blood- 
shed, when these men were our enemies and when 
we were to them the very incarnation of evil! 

Our next excursion was southwestward along 
the line of the Granny White pike, which direc- 
tion we took on the day following our visit to 
Overton's hill. In the city suburbs we found 
and traced for some distance that portion of our 
breastworks leading in a southwesterly direction 
from Fort Morton. Driving briskly along the 
well-kept pike over a gentle down grade, we were 
not long in reaching the outer line of Hood's 
works, small portions of which we found, extend- 
ing from the pike eastward to a grove. A fence 
runs along their summit and one side has been 
plowed down, so that an untrained eye would 
probably overlook them altogether. But they are 
very accessible by a lane which reaches from the 
pike along their entire extent, just north of what 
was known as the Cantrell place during the war. 

A little further south, perhaps half a mile, we 
succeeded, by the aid of a farmer who lives in the 
vicinity, in finding a portion of General S. D. 
Lee's works, who occupied Hood's center. A 
larger portion of Lee's works lay through what is 
now cultivated ground. Hence they have for 
the most part disappeared. The poition which 
we found and traced is about 150 yards in extent, 



— 118 — 

lying along the verge of Brown's creek. It is 
literally covered with a thick tangle of small trees 
and high bushes, but it is for that very reason 
the better preserved. It is very probable that its 
location may save it for many years to come. It 
may be found by following the cross-road (just 
south of the Cantrell place) eastward to the creek t 
and thence following up the course of the creek 
to the thick undergrowth. We spent some time 
with a cottager whose home is a little way from 
this portion of earthwork. His boys have gath- 
ered many relics of the field, and only a few days 
before our visit they sold a barrel of shot and 
shell for old iron ! If some of those old shells 
are not yet heard from in the column of cas- 
ualties, I lose my guess. They were not made for 
blast furnace crucibles to fool with. 

Leaving this part of Hood's center, we returned 
to the pike and pursued our course a mile and a 
half further south, to Shy's hill and the several 
other hills with which it forms a short range 
immediately west of the Granny White pike and 
residence, and parallel with the pike. Along the 
crest of this line of high and steep hills Bates's 
division of Cheatham's corps threw up a hasty 
breastwork of loosely piled earth and broken 
stones, with which latter the hill-tops abound. 
This was the extreme left of Hood's last position,, 
taken on the night of Dec. 15th, after he had 
been driven from the earthworks of his first line. 
Immediately in front of the Granny White resi- 



— 119 — 

dence we found a narrow, stony road leading up 
into a sort of pass which penetrates these hills. 
Up this road we went to their base and there left 
our carriage. We had now reached the very south 
spur of the short range* and were between the 
positions occupied by Wilson's dismounted men 
( who had turned the confederate flank ) and 
Cheatham's men. The steep ground by which we 
ascended, making our way over fallen timber and 
through the thick tangle of brush and weeds, 
is that over which Wilson's men made their 
last charge upon Bates's division of the enemy. 
Reaching the crest of the hill, we soon found the 
conglomerate breastwork. It must have been a 
strange scene on that wintry night, when thous- 
ands of men, weary with a severe day's fighting 
and heaitsore from defeat, crowded these narrow 
hilltops, and by pine-knot lights set themselves 
to the work of piling the frozen ground and the 
cold stones to make for themselves a trench, in 
which they well knew that many of them would 
have to die before another sun should set. And 
here are the stones and earth which they piled, 
first along the crest of the hill westward, thence 
half way down the hill, thence northward along 
the western slope of the hill, through the narrow 
divide and up along the crest of the next hill 
north. Once in the ditch or on the embankment, 
there is no trouble to trace it. In all probability 
it will remain here for a century to come, for 
these rocky hill-tops' can never be worth tilling. 



— 120 — 

Here on one side of this ditch died the men who 
were clad in gray; and on the other, all along 
up the steep slope, died my comrades of Wilson's 
command, for it was that to which my regiment 
belonged. The trees, too, bear their marks. On 
the side of one I counted 24 distinct scars! As 
we walked we picked up a fragment of shell and 
several bits of canteens and cartridge boxes which 
were dropped here by men who had ceased to need 
them. But the thick weeds and underbrush pre- 
vented any effectual search for relics. I predict 
that the time will come when these hilltops will 
be made easily accessible, the brush cleared away, 
and the earthworks visited by thousands. 

At the foot of Shy's hill, as we descended, 
we met two confederate soldiers. They did not 
challenge us. There was no " click, click " of a 
rising musket hammer, nor any clank of sabres. 
They simply looked up, one from his sorting of 
potatoes, and the other as he came towards us, 
and said cordially, " How d'y?' 1 We answered, 
" How d'y? " Then we learned that one of them 
had been a member of the First Tennessee and the 
other of the Fourth. The spokesman of the two, 
Mr. Ned Scruggs, as he told us, was in the battle 
of Nashville, and yearly plants his potatoes and 
hoes his corn on the ground where he fought — 
and where he ran. He pointed out to us a gap 
in the hills through which he went " on double- 
quick time, yew bet, when our officers corned 
down the line and says, ' Every man take kyar of 



— 121 — 

hisself. 1 I made up my mind that I'd do it quick, 
and right hyar's where I corned threw on a 
right smart run." And he laughed heartily as 
he looked back on the figure which that fleeting 
Johnny must have cut. Yankees and bullets 
were after him, and haste was entirely proper. 
Neither he nor his comrades stood " on the order 
of their going;" thej r went. They had no time 
to laugh. It is safe to say they didn't see the 
joke then. These passing scores of years have 
wrought a change, when such a man can laugh 
with a yankee (all northerners are yankees here) 
over his own disasters. " I -don't think no less of 
yew to day than ef yew lied a been a rebel right 
along with the rest of us," was a part of the 
cordial greeting. " The soldiers never hed no 
feelin' agin one 'nother no how. Hit wuz a rich 
man's war an' a poor man's fight. Look a' how 
we'uns used to meet up with you alls, whenever 
we hed a chance, on the outposts. Why, we'uns 
and you'uns used to leave our guns an' meet up 
'twixt the lines, an' talk haf hour at a time, an' 
trade papers an' one truck or other, when the 
officers warn't watchin'. Done it mo'n wunst 
myself." He pressed us to go to his house, but 
the afternoon was already well advanced and we 
had quite a ride before us, so were reluctantly 
compelled to decline. We returned the compli- 
ment and invited him to Kalamazoo. If all of 
our new-made acquaintances should accept our 
invitation and visit us at the same time, Kalama- 
zoo would still be in danger of being taken by 
confederates. 



^\u Em©r^©D c v °f War 8 . 

A cavalryman's reminiscence of an " unwrit- 
ten''' EPISODE — HOW A CITY ON THE BOEDER 
SURPRISED ITSELF OF A WINTER'S MORNING. 

We reached Louisville yesterday in the afternoon 
( Aug. 24th, 1885 ). The change in the city during 
the past twenty years, in growth, cleanliness, 
thrift and elegance is very noticeable. The town 
just now wears a holiday smile of banners and 
garlands because of its freshly opened Exposition. 

Of course we have an open eye to all of these 
things. But our thoughts are mainly directed to 
other days when these streets were alive with 
another kind of visitors. Louisville had all of the 
"crowds" that she wanted in those days. The 
persistency with which they came must have been 
discouraging to the thousands of her citizens who 
prayed for the Johnies and cursed the Yankees. 
Over the river yonder, a little above Jefferson vilie, 
nearly opposite the old shot tower, is the site of 
our camp where, for several weeks, we knocked 
around in the snow and wondered why the authori- 
ties did not send us south to close up the war. 

Later in the war, a few months after the fall of 
Atlanta, we were encamped over here in the south- 
eastern outskirts of the city. Many of our horses 
had been worn out on the Atlanta campaign. 
122 



— 123 — 

The rest we had turned over to Kilpatrick's com- 
mand at Rome, Georgia, and had returned by rail 
to this city to get fresh horses. During the first 
days of December we received the company "picket 
ropes " — long and heavy lines to be stretched from 
post to post, each long enough to tie the hundred 
horses of a company to. These we were ordered 
to have in readiness for our horses; so we knew 
that the horses themselves could not be far away. 
They were in fact much nearer than we thought. 
On the crisp, cold night of December 8th, 1864, a 
detail of men from each company and regiment 
was ordered to report with as little noise as possi- 
ble at a given place in the city. It was about 
midnight. Quietly the men marched into the city. 
To each detail a certain portion of the city was 
assigned, and the men were speedily sub-divided 
into squads, so that each knew how many houses 
had been assigned to it. Then at the pre-arranged 
hour, simultaneously the stables all over the city 
of Louisville were thrown open and the much-sur- 
prised horses, without regard to u race, color or 
previous condition of servitude," were led forth, 
formed into line and started in procession u by twos" 
for camp. So quietly was this done that with only 
here and there an exception, the unsuspecting 
citizens slept on in blissful ignorance of the fact 
that, while they dreamed, there had been effected 
a prodigious and startling transfer of ownership in 
horse-flesh. It didn't take Louisville long to wake 
up and get her clothes on in the morning however. 
It may be remarked that "she done 'woke up, 
quick, fo' shuah." By daylight thousands of 
horses, which the night before had been put into- 
their warm stables, stood out of doors in long and 
shivering rows, making each others' acquaintance 
and voting that "the war was a failure." 



HOW THESE HISTORIC LOCALITIES MAY BE SEEN TO 

BEST ADVANTAGE AN INVITING FIELD EOR SUMMER 

TOURISTS. 

In the interest of those who have never been 
over the ground and who may be contemplating 
a trip to the historic scenes of which I have writ- 
ten, I have been asked to add a brief chapter of 
such suggestions as might be helpful. As to the 
time — very many, perhaps most, are frightened 
-away from the South at that time of the year when 
most of those who travel have a few weeks of va- 
cation. They are afraid of the weather. Allow 
me to remind them that a little more than twenty 
years ago it was a very popular thing to go South. 
Hundreds of thousands went in the summer as well 
as in the winter. Traveling there used to be a 
trifle inconvenient and dangerous ; but no one laid 
it to the weather. Both of the trips mentioned in 
the previous pages were made in the month of 
August. On the latter the writer was accompanied 
by his wife. On both occasions the thermometer 
ranged lower at Chattanooga during the first week 
of August than it had in southern Michigan dur- 
ing the last week of July. On Lookout Mountain 

124 



— 125 — 

the heat is never oppressive, rarely reaching 85 de- 
grees Fahrenheit. Probably the latter part of May 
or the fore part of June would be the most favor- 
able season for southern travel. I should, however, 
greatly prefer the month of August to any in the 
early spring, late autumn or winter, in all of which 
seasons one is liable to encounter dreary and pro- 
tracted rains. 

If you have seen no battle ground of the war and 
desire to see the most possible in the least space, by 
all means visit Chattanooga. My reasons for such 
advice are sufficiently set forth in the preceding 
pages. Either going or returning you will want to 
enjoy the wonderful scenery of the Cincinnati 
Southern railway. My way has been to go by 
that route and return by ^Nashville., In case you 
choose that way you will want to take the early 
morning train from Cincinnati. That will give you 
all of the most remarkable views, through the moun- 
tains and the tunnel region, before dark. By that 
route you reach Chattanooga about nine o'clock in 
the evening. 

Good hotel accommodations can be secured in 
the city for two dollars a day. If you wish to pro- 
tract your visit, as many do, excellent accommoda- 
tions can be had at thirty dollars a month. The 
hotel rates on the mountain are ordinarily two dol- 
lars a day, with but slight reduction for protracted 
boarders. Some secure board with the farmers and 
thus make their stay serve the double purpose of 
giving them not only the magnificent scenery of 



— 126 — 

the mountain, but also glimpses of mountain life. 
If one wishes he can have their plain but whole- 
some fare at four or five dollars a week. The livery 
accommodations are ample and, with proper care 
on the part of the tourist, reasonable. I have found 
it of advantage to arrange with one stable in ad- 
vance, for so much a day, and have had no trouble 
to secure rates as moderate as anywhere in the' 
north; single rig, all day, three dollars; half-day 
drives, one dollar and fifty cents. 

There is really no need of a guide unless one is 
greatly hurried. Any person can find the principal 
points of interest by enquiry and when they are 
reached he will not be limited by the haste of a 
guide. Most of these points in or about the city 
are in plain view. If you are limited for time you 
can visit Bock Fort, Cameron Hill, Fort Wood, Or- 
chard Knob, and the National Cemetery, in one 
day. But it would be better and in the end far 
more satisfactory to spend a day at the latter place. 
The natural and artistic elements of the spot are 
all that could be desired. That is a small Consider- 
ation however. The men who sleep there have 
earned something more than a hasty visit to the 
place where their ashes rest. Uncover your head 
and walk for a time amid their graves, thinking up- 
on the price of your liberties. From whatever part 
of the North, you will be sure to find on those low 
head-stones more than one familiar name. 

Missionary Eidge, in plain sight, should have a 
day. You will have a charming drive to the Eidge 



— 127 — 

and beautiful views during the ascent and from the 
summit. Every rod from its northern end to Eoss- 
ville is historic, but that part of the slope up which 
the famous charge occurred is opposite the city and 
can be pointed out by almost anyone. Chicka- 
mauga battle-field lies nine miles southeast of the 
city and its points of greatest interest can be 
reached without difficulty. The road to Eossville 
is all in view from various elevated points in the 
city. When through the Gap at Eossville any 
farmer can direct you to Mr. Kelley's, whose house 
stands at a point where some of the hardest fight- 
ing occurred. He can direct you to Mr. Snodgrass's, 
where Gen. Thomas had his headquarters during 
the last day's fighting. From there you can go 
through the woods in any direction without going 
amiss. Anyone contemplating such a visit would 
find the little volume, " The Army of the Cumber- 
land," by Gen. Henry M. Cist, a great help. His 
description of the battle of Chickamauga and of the 
whole region is very intelligent and clear. 

On Lookout Mountain you will want to visit the 
Point, Eock City, the Natural Bridge, and if pos- 
sible, Lulu Lake. The latter requires a carriage 
ride of seven miles. If possible plan for at least a 
week or ten days on the mountain. Every ad- 
ditional day's ramble will find something new and 
surprising in that region of unparalleled scenery. 

Atlanta lies one hundred and forty-five miles 
south of Chattanooga and from the cars a hundred 
historic points can be seen on the way thither: 



e_ 128 — 

Binggoid, Tunnel Hill, Dalton, Eesaca, Cartersville r 
Allatoona Pass, Kenesaw Mountain, Marietta and 
others. Many days could be spent in and around 
Atlanta, visiting the trenches and forts which still 
remain. 

[Returning via Nashville, the railroad takes you 
through Murfreesboro and the National cemetery 
there. The battle-field there is nearly all open 
ground and, tying on both sides of the railroad, can 
be seen from the car window. The letters on the 
war surroundings of Nashville will indicate the 
points of chief interest and how to reach them. 

Without especially reduced rates, the round trip 
to Chattanooga from any point near Chicago, in- 
cluding all expenses of a week's stay there and on 
the mountain, need not be more than $65. Of 
course the more extended trip to Atlanta will cost 
more in proportion. 

The End. 



THE UNITED SERVIC 

THE ONLY MAGAZINE IN THE UNITED STATES DEVOTED 
TO THE INTERESTS OF THE 

MILITARY, NAVAL AND CI VIL SERVICE. 

THE UNITED SERVICE FOR 1886. 



Among the many contributions of 
special interest we call special atten- 
tion to the following : 

The series of articles on the late war, 
by authors who participated in the 
battles which they describe, both 
Federal and Confederate, among 
wtiomwillbe: 

Brevet Major- General. Brigadier-Gen- 
eral O. O. Howard, U. S. A. "Sher- 
man's Campaign of 1864." 
Brevet Major-General Brigadier-Gen- 
eral (retired), R. W. Johnson, U. S. 
A. "The Battle of Stone River." 
Brevet Brigadier-General U. S. Volun- 
teers Major A. M. Uandol, First U. 
S Artillery (late Colonel Second 
New York Cavalry, "Harris's Light") 
"The second New York Cavalry at 
Appomattox, April 8 and 9, 1885." 
Brevet Brigadier-General U. S. Volun- 
teers, Colonel A. S. Daggett, Second 
U. S. Infantry. " The Battle of Rap- 
pahannock fetation." 
Colonel A. G. Bkackett, Third IT. S. 
Cavalry, "The Battle of Ezra 
Church." 
Colonel Horatio C King. "Remi- 
niscences of a Quartermaster, 1864- 
65 " • 

Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander R 
Chisodm, Aide-de-Camp lo General 
Beauregard. " Reminiscences of an 
Aide-de-tamp— The Battle of Shi- 
loh." 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, Captain 
M H.Stacy, Twelfth U. S. Infantry. 
"The Battles on the Weldon Rail- 
road, 1864." 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, Captain 
W. R. Parnell, First U. S. Cavalry. 
Recollections of 1863 " 
Also "REMINISCENCES OF A 
WESTERN VOLUNTEER," and nu- 
merous other war articles, which will 
be duly announctd. 



Cruises of TJ. S. men-of-war durin 
the first half of this century, from tt 
diaries of officers attached to then 
will be given with interesting d< 
script ions of countries in all parts t 
the world, anecdotes of naval office! 
of that day never before publish* 
"The Cruise of the 'Vincennes' " i 
the November United Service opei 
ed the series. 

Articles on the Cavalry, Artiller 
Infantry, by officers of the respects 
corps, whose names will be a guarai 
tee of their capacity to treat of su 
jects dealt with. 

The NATIONAL GUARD will r 
ceive attention in the Magazine, ai 
an article entitled "THE NATIONS 
GUARD OF THE UNITED STATES 
by General Horatio C. King, inti 
January number will be followed) 
others. 

The Army and Navy Quartet 
(Eclectic), having been merged in 
the United Service, it is our inte 
tion to reproduce from standard ft 
eign magazines such professional a 
tides as will be of interest to office 
of tne Army and Navy. 

The CIVIL SERVICE will recei 
notice and articles relating theret 
from the pens of able writers, w 
appear trom time to time. 

Numerous professional articles 
current importance, and short stori 
from eminent writers, will be a lea 
ing feature of the Magazine durh 
1886. 

We are pleased to state that Ti 
United Service has doubled its c: 
culation during the past year. 

Price 35 cents. $4.00 per annui 
Specimen Copies sent free on App 
cation. 



The November and December numbers. 1.^85, furnished free to subscribers 1 
1886, began several interesting serials. "A ZEALOT IN TULLE." by Mrs. Wi 
DKiCK. wife of an army officer; a story of "CADET LIFE AT WEST POII 
DURING THE WAR," Capt. Ohakles King, and "THE CRUISE "I 
IT. S. SLOOP-OF-WAR 'VINCENNES,'" circumnavigating the globe 
from the journal of Lieutenant Browning, U. S. N. 

All subscriptions must he addressed to 

THE UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE. 

Post Office Box 1877. - New York City 



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